


Light Denied

by w0rdinista (Niamh_St_George)



Series: Amelle Hawke [7]
Category: Dragon Age II
Genre: Blindness, F/M, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-11
Updated: 2013-11-26
Packaged: 2018-01-01 05:01:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 35,981
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1040640
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Niamh_St_George/pseuds/w0rdinista
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Amelle Hawke loses her vision in battle.  Without knowing if her sight will ever return again, she has to re-learn the world around her, and her place in it, sense by sense.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue: White and Black

**Author's Note:**

  * For [loquaciousquark](https://archiveofourown.org/users/loquaciousquark/gifts).



> This started out as a prompt given to me by loquaciousquark--a ficlet prompt, as it happens, but things got a bit out of control. As they sometimes do. Oops?

_When I consider how my light is spent,_

_Ere half my days in this dark world and wide,_

_And that one talent which is death to hide_

_Lodged with me useless, though my soul more bent_

_To serve therewith my Maker, and present_

_My true account, lest He returning chide;_

_"Doth God exact day-labor, light denied?"_

_I fondly ask. But Patience, to prevent_

_That murmur, soon replies, "God doth not need_

_Either man's work or His own gifts. Who best_

_Bear His mild yoke, they serve Him best. His state_

_Is kingly: thousands at His bidding speed,_

_And post o'er land and ocean without rest;_

_They also serve who only stand and wait."_

_~John Milton, "When I Consider How My Light Is Spent"_

#

Sometimes battles unfold like a dance.  Times when everyone has a place and everyone knows their steps, when words are superfluous and they all simply _know._

This is such a battle.

Varric’s bolts fly with unerring accuracy while Isabela darts and weaves and spins from opponent to opponent—or, rather, victim to victim—her blades flashing orange, reflecting the sun as it sets over the Wounded Coast, the daggers caught up in their own dance.  Fenris, too, moves on quick, sure feet, nimble and deadly and impossibly _fast_ as his tattoos glow and his sword drives through slavers, turning their triumphant battle cries into agonized screams.  And Hawke, with mana buzzing through her veins, hovering ever-present at her fingertips and coalescing into flame, into ice, into shuddering, flickering bolts of lightning with barely a thought.

Times like these they are a unit that moves, breathes, thinks and acts as one.  They are winning, because _that is what they do_ in battles such as this one.

It is enough to make her forget that even the best battles, even the ones they are winning, can turn on a copper.

And maybe it is _because_ they are winning.  Maybe their opponents are too aware of their dwindling numbers, are aware they are going to lose—aware they are going to _die_ —and fury and desperation combine to push them forward recklessly, knowing that any blow they can land will be enough.

She sees too clearly the slaver rushing toward her, hatred making his eyes wild as he bares his teeth at her like a rabid beast. She also sees the dagger he’s wielding in one hand and a little sphere that looks conspicuously like one of Varric’s tar bombs in the other. Narrowing her eyes, she sends a wave of ice and frost the assassin’s way, freezing him solid to the spot.

She sees, too late, fingers release the tar bomb and she realizes—also too late—that’s not what it was at all.

The mana that’s been buzzing beneath her skin throughout the entire battle, the energy she’s been summoning with barely more than a breath and a thought, _rushes_ forward as she tries at the last moment, the last _second_ to twist and stretch it into a shield.  The little sphere judders and cracks like a newborn chick forcing its way out of an egg, but in between the cracks, light—so very much _light_ —streams out.

Fenris’ voice, ragged, hoarse—and, yes, she hears it: _terrified_ —calling her.

_“Hawke!”_

The force of the light leaves her breathless, so breathless she cannot answer Fenris, can barely _think_ to answer him.  It hits her like a blast, melts her shield like spun sugar in the rain.

She is suddenly five years old again, sitting in the back garden with Papa and Mama, with Bethany and Carver, both toddling around on chubby, unsteady legs.  She is sitting on Papa’s lap as the sun above them shifts into shadow, but for the sun’s burning ring stretching out from the eclipse’s darkness.

 _You must never look at an eclipse straight on, sweetling,_ he told her.

But now, _now_ she isn’t looking at an eclipse, she’s looking into the sun itself. 

Everything goes white.

And then black.


	2. Touch

The world comes together in pieces.

There is a pillow beneath her head, soft and familiar, and when Amelle turns her head the pillowcase is cool against her cheek.  She is in a bed, likewise familiar—her bed.  From her right,  the fire softly pops and crackles in the hearth, its warmth pushing back the room’s chill.  

Everything is familiar.  But the room is dark.

No, that can’t be right.  Can’t be right at all—even if the room were dark, she would see the fire; she _feels_ the fire, so why can’t she—

Hawke sits up with a gasp and something in her head rocks and heaves and her stomach follows suit, _Maker_ , she’s going to—

 A hand on her shoulder.  Whose hand?  She can’t— _whose hand?_

“Hawke.”  Fenris.  It’s Fenris.  “Be still.”

Fenris’ hand, and she can tell now as she reaches up with searching fingertips until she meets warm, calloused skin.  When she finds his hand she grips it, hard, because her dizziness hasn’t abated, the nausea certainly hasn’t abated; something both leaden and molten has settled in her stomach, and she cannot swallow it away. 

“Lie back,” he instructs, his voice so near her ear the warmth of his breath stirs her hair.  “You are injured.  Lie back.”

She wants to comply, but something is _wrong_ and she shakes her head stubbornly, not trusting her voice, not trusting anything as she claps her free hand over her mouth.  The floor vibrates with heavy footsteps as somebody rushes into her room, bumping her bed in their haste.  

“I’ve found a bucket,” Anders voice says breathlessly.  “Is she—”

Whatever question Anders was about to ask is lost as Hawke twists her body, reaching out as her feet hit the floor, hands groping until the bucket is thrust into her hands.  Her knees ache with the contact as she falls, still clutching the bucket and choking, retching, _heaving_ , and her head is pounding, tilting, swimming as bile burns her throat.

The wave of nausea passes, only making way for another to crash upon her, and then another; her stomach tightens and pushes, over and over and _over_ again, until finally coming up dry. Until she is choking on the stench of her own sick, her throat tightening with gasping, desperate, burning breaths instead of nausea.  She spits, miserably, and runs a hand over her face, when her fingertips slide into something cold and slick smeared upon her cheeks.  It tingles across the pads of her fingers like thousands of tiny icicles.  Ice salve, then. Hawke explores further, her prodding fingers finding something soft—linen, she thinks, in strips and wrapped around her—

 _Bandages._ Bandages are wrapped around her head, covering her eyes.

“Fenris?” she croaks, her voice little more than a rasp that grinds against her raw throat.  “Anders? What—”

His hands are on her again, warm and rough, gripping her forearms and slowly guiding her to her feet, as her legs wobble unsteadily beneath her.  Soon she’s sitting on her bed, the mattress sinking comfortably with her weight, and then Fenris is guiding her back against the pillows, so silent— _too silent,_ and all she wants to do is look at him, see his face, read his emotions in his eyes, but there is only the pressure of linen strips wrapped around her head.

“It’s… it’s nothing I’ve seen before, Hawke,” Anders says, and when she turns her head towards his voice, somewhere above and to the right, everything in her head dips and tilts again, causing her empty stomach to lurch.  Again _._

“It was an assassin,” Fenris finally says, and she is suddenly sure it is he who is pulling her blankets up.  “He is no more.”

“And normally I’d be all for that,” Anders adds, “but all Varric brought back were a few shards.”

“It… looked like a tar bomb,” she mumbles, fingers dragging across the bandages.  Something’s wrong.  Something’s very, very wrong; her face… hurts, and her eyes—what’s happened to her eyes?

“Nothing so… simple,” Fenris says quietly, his hand guiding hers away from the bandages.  “There was lyrium in it.”

“And corruptor agent,” Anders says grimly.  “Two of the main components in magebane.”

It is with those words Amelle realizes there is too much dizziness, too much wrongness in her head that is overshadowing the more important thing—the most important thing—what she _doesn’t_ feel _._

Hawke can’t feel the Fade.  She doesn’t feel it, thick and warm and ever-present, filling her veins like sunlight and honey and breath and life.  She breathes in, stretching, trying to reach for it, to brush invisible fingers against that connection inside her, but it’s empty and dry, cracked and scraped over, and all at once the ramifications slam into her.  If she hadn’t already lost the contents of her stomach, she’d have been sick all over again.

She cannot heal herself.

“Anders,” she manages, terror clenching around her throat, tightening in her chest.  “You healed me.”  It is not a question, she cannot afford for it to be a question.

But the other mage doesn’t answer.  He doesn’t say anything for several seconds, and all there is is darkness and the familiarity of her bed, of Fenris’ warmth, which means he’s standing close by, which means he’s worried.

“Magebane is resistant to magic,” he says quietly.  And worse, apologetically _._   “I had no choice but to treat it with topical—”

“No.”  She hears his words, understands them even, but they grate and burn against the empty place inside her.  _“No.”_

“Your magic will return, Hawke.”

Her voice grates up her throat.  “Will it return in time for me to _heal my bloody eyes?_ ”

Anders does not reply.  There is no reply he _can_ give, and they both know that now.

“Go,” Fenris’ voice says, and though she knows he is talking to Anders, none of the rancor he usually reserves for the mage is present in his words.  Normally it vibrates like a plucked string, shuddering through the air around him, and the absence of it is too like the absence of her magic.  “Go,” he says again.  “I will stay.”

“Explain—”

His reply is a terse, “I will.” 

Hawke has never known these two of her companions to speak with anything so close to civility in their dealings with one another.  That tells Hawke more than anything else about the state of affairs; she shivers with a chill she’s nearly certain has nothing to do with the ice salve.

“I’ll… I’ll be back, Hawke.  Keep the bandages on.  You’ll be—we’ll… we will figure this out.”

The door closes with a click.

“You don’t have to,” she says, half wishing he’d leave and half wishing he’d crawl onto the bed with her so his warmth will be on her sheets, so she can selfishly wrap herself around his reassuring solid presence.  “You don’t have to stay.”

“Even so.”  He presses a cool glass into her hands.  “Water,” he tells her, fingers resting lightly, reassuringly against the top of her hand.  “Drink.”

She does, obediently, and the cool liquid washes away the foul taste of bile while soothing her raw throat.  Hawke focuses on the smooth glass she’s holding, letting the fingertips of one hand drift up the length and running her forefinger along the lip and then down again.  It’s the simple glass she usually keeps on the sideboard, no etching, no decoration, just a simple, plain glass.  When she takes another sip, she misjudges the simple, familiar item, and dribbles water down her chin.  Fenris rescues the glass from her hands and Amelle swipes the water away with her sleeve because she cannot stand the idea of Fenris dabbing at her face with a cloth, like a child or invalid.

“What happened?” she asks, clasping her hands. There is something reassuring in the sensation of her palms pressed together; she knows no one’s hands like she knows her own, and any familiarity right now is good _._   She finds the scar along her right thumb, the one she got before she knew how to heal herself.  Her fingers are long and slender, but the knuckles have always been a bit pronounced, probably from how often she cracks them.

“Hawke?”

It’s then she realizes she’s been fidgeting.  “I’m fi—no, I… guess I’m not.  But don’t… don’t mind me.  Go on.”

Fenris tells her about the light and the heat that shot forth out of the assassin’s weapon, the intensity of it, the way it singed the robes she’d been wearing, pushing the garment to the very utmost limit of its enchantments.  He tells her her face was burned.  He covers all of these points slowly, methodically, but he is avoiding talking about her eyes. Fenris doesn’t wear avoidance well, and the longer he doesn’t talk about her sight, the more she can feel the pressure of everything he isn’t saying weigh down on the room.

Then, finally:  “We brought you to the clinic.  While treating your burns, the—Anders discovered something…” Fenris trails off, and there is a shift in the air; he does not want to say what Anders discovered, but this is Fenris and he does not shy away from bad news.  “Your eyes were—they did not… respond as they should have.”

Being a healer, Amelle can read (oh, the irony) between the lines.  Even while unconscious, her eyes would have responded to stimuli.  Assuming her eyes themselves hadn’t been burned beyond recognition.  

She forces her voice to lightness—it’s difficult, it’s so difficult, because she can’t see and now, _now_ she’s aware of how tight her skin feels, the warmth on her hands, her face, her neck, and it’s bad, it’s very _bad_ —and says, “Well, you’re at least still referring to them as eyes and not, you know, clumps of ash, so I suppose there’s still hope.”  

The words come out bitter instead of light, and she wants to cry, wants to _weep_ and curl into a corner so she can indulge in self-pity properly.  

“Hawke.”  His hands are over hers, separating them and holding them still.  The sting along her thumbnail tells her she’s been picking at her cuticle; the dampness there tells her it’s bleeding.

“I can’t _see_ , Fenris.”

He relinquishes his hold on one hand, fingers coming to rest beneath her chin.  “The burns are superficial,” he tells her, and because this is Fenris, and Fenris would not lie, not about this, she believes him.  

Her voice is too thick for the tightness in her throat.  “But my _eyes_ —”

“Were unresponsive when the mage checked them. That is true.”

Rage chokes her, tightens in her lungs and curls her fingers into fists.  Rage at the unfairness of it.  Rage at the swell of cockiness that had been surging through her in the moments before everything went white.  Rage at the bastard who decided to shove _magebane_ in a _tar-bomb._   “Then I’m _blind,_ ” she spits out.

Fenris’ grip on her chin tightens and something chases across her skin—she’s certain his markings are alight, and in that moment she realizes she may never see another of Fenris’ glares, or the way lyrium lights a path across his skin in a fight; she may never again see his rare smirks or rarer smiles.  She may never again see a shaft of morning light hit his tousled head as he turns his face into the pillow with a sleepy grumble.

Her rage gutters out as swiftly as it ignited.

“I may never see you again,” she whispers, and perhaps that is foolish of her—there are far direr consequences to a blind Champion—and yet.

Fenris’ fingers disappear from her chin and once again he’s holding both her hands.  “Perhaps not,” he says, guiding one hand over the strip of silk he’s worn wrapped around his wrist since that night.  But he doesn’t stop there—he’s bringing her hands to his face.

“In Minrathous,” he murmurs, his voice low and thick with emotion he’s trying _not_ to let bleed through, “there was a slave of Danarius’ who had been blind since birth.  He would never have purchased such… _damaged goods_ ,” he adds, his tone heavy with loathing, “but the child’s parents were also his, and he was not a man to waste any resource.”  As Fenris speaks, he guides Amelle’s fingers all across his face.  She finds the line of his jaw she loves so much, the stubborn chin and frowning lips.  She traces his nose up to his brow, and sees his profile in her mind’s eye.

“He was still a child when I knew him,” he continues, letting her hands roam his face.  “This was… his way of acquainting himself with those around him.”

Her thumbs glide over his eyelids, both hands sliding back to his ears.  She realizes for the first time how… weathered Fenris’ skin is, and what a strange counterpoint that is to the softness of his hair, where her fingers are lost now.  She explores his face a few moments longer, _reading_ it with her fingertips, finding tiny details and imperfections she’s never noticed before.

“Scowl for me,” she whispers, hating how thin her voice sounds, pressed beneath grief.

Fenris’ eyelashes brush her skin as he closes his eyes and she wonders whether he will acquiesce to such a silly request.  After too many seconds, his eyebrows furrow (such a strange sensation, to feel skin _move_ beneath one’s touch) and she finds the ridge between his brow and the set line of his mouth.  She can see it clearly in her head; she’s seen all of Fenris’ scowls and has been the cause of at least half of them.  But then the expression melts away, as if he hasn’t the heart to maintain such a normal thing as a scowl for her.  She tries— _tries_ to read his face, but now the eyebrows aren’t right—they’re furrowed, but tilting the wrong way—and his mouth is all wrong, and his jaw… he is clenching his teeth, but it’s… it’s wrong somehow.  

It’s wrong, but she knows it all the same.

“Fenris,” she breathes, voice breaking on the last syllable.

“This may be this is beyond your power to fix,” he tells her, his voice soft, his breath warm against her palm.  “But it  is still within your power to decide whether it renders you helpless.”


	3. Intuition

Two days doesn’t seem like it ought to be that long a time.  

Two days.  A drop in the bucket.  

Two days.  No time at all.

Two days spent in darkness.  Two days listening to the strain in her friends’ voices when they come to visit. Two days of normality turned and twisted on its ear, the lowest point of which is when she has to relearn how to use the privy when she can’t _see it_ , and thank the Maker for Aveline, who will have none of her self-pity during that particular lesson.  

Two days have no business lasting quite as long as they do.

But in that time the magebane gradually recedes from Amelle’s system, relinquishing its hold, allowing her mana to creep shyly back into her veins, gradually warming that bare, raw spot inside her, the place where she is tethered to the Fade.  It happens while she is sleeping—Anders has encouraged her to rest, and without a host of other diversions, sleeping is the obvious choice. Slowly, so slowly her dark, dreamless sleep takes shape, her Fade construct piecing itself together out of sheer instinct, or something deeper than instinct.  Soon she is standing in the center of her library, the fire in the hearth glowing orange as it licks hungrily at the logs.  Sunlight falls through the tall, the impossibly tall windows, pale shafts catching dust motes floating lazily through the air.  The colors are rich enough to make her wonder if her accident was the dream and this is the reality, because in the Fade, reality _is_ the dream.

And in the Fade, there are no bandages over her eyes.  In the Fade she can _see._

Amelle strolls through her dream-library, pulling books from the shelf and running her fingers over embossed titles, drinking in the words, the glint of gold on the pages, the leather covers—ruby reds, midnight blues, forest greens—wondering when Fenris will be by for a lesson before remembering he won’t be.  If he does, it won’t be him.  A dream.  

Just a dream.

She jerks awake suddenly and with a gasp, the warmly-lit library plunging into inky-cold darkness.  She lay still a moment, confused by the dark— _frightened_ by it—heart thundering against her breast, but as she tries to slow and control her breathing, the library with its lush colors and warm light fade into dimness and then darkness with every beat and every breath. And though she tries to hold onto it, memory of that room dissipates as quickly as any other dream.

“…Fenris?” she breathes, not sure exactly _what_ woke her.

“No,” a voice says.  It’s Anders.  “He’s… it took Sebastian, Donnic and Aveline to convince him to get some sleep.  He’s downstairs in the library.”  He coughs once.  “I… apologize. I hadn’t thought you were awake.”

“I wasn’t,” she answers quietly, carefully guiding herself back until she’s sitting up against the headboard.  “I was… asleep. Dreaming.”

“Well, that’s… good,” he says.  “It’s a good sign you’re dreaming.”

She tilts her head and tries sending the sound of his voice a wry look.  “A good sign I’m still connected to the Fade, you mean.”

In the silence that follows she imagines Anders nodding, and then catching himself before answering. “Yes, I—yes.  It is.”  More silence, and Amelle knows the quality of that particular silence well; Anders is distracted—no, he’s concentrating on something.  He’s thinking _._

“I believe,” she says, pushing her voice to lightness she does not feel, “you promised me new bandages.”

“I… did.”

“Don’t tell me you’re going to renege; it’s bad form to go back on your promises.”

Another silence, this one more strained—though it may only be strained on Amelle’s side.  They’ve never had a good relationship, but things have been even uneasier than usual between them lately—ever since Carver joined the templars, in fact.  It’s only now Amelle’s realizing Anders could, if he wanted, keep her in the dark—literally and figuratively—if it suited him.  She wonders for a moment, wonders if he’d really _do_ such a thing.  

She doesn’t think so; they’ve butted heads more than once, but this is… different.  No matter what else Anders is, he’s still a healer _._   Isn’t he?

The mattress sinks a bit as Anders sits on the edge of the bed.  Amelle’s never noticed before how her mana reacts to the presence of another mage—or perhaps it’s her own sensitivities responding to the spirit existing inside him; such nuances are hard to tell.  But her mana flows a bit differently as he sits down, prickling and surging a little before finally settling—uneasily.

“I’m more than just connected,” she says as he begins unwinding the linen strips from around her head.  Amelle lifts a hand and with a breath there is a rushing in her veins like wind, like a current, like a blade swinging down in an arc; flame—blue flame, if her guess is right, bright but not hot—engulfs her hand.  “My power’s back _._ ”

Anders lets out a deep, long sigh. “I know what you’re thinking, Hawke.”

Yes, he probably does—as often as they differ, she is fairly certain he would feel the same way were their positions reversed.  “That if my power is back then I may have managed to heal myself without even knowing it?”

Anders doesn’t reply right away; his hands are busy with the bandages.  “That… could be,” he finally says, doubtfully.  There is too much he isn’t saying, however; it lingers around and behind his words, stretching and twisting like shadows in full moonlight.  

“You don’t sound as if you think it’s terribly likely.”

“Do I sound as if I’ve never encountered this manner of injury before?”  There’s an edge to his words, to his tone, and that too speaks to Amelle.  She sighs.

“Anders…”

“I don’t know what to tell you,” he says and she knows, she _knows_ he’s running a hand through his hair, a gesture of frustration she’s seen countless times before.  “And I don’t want to give you false hope.  Yes, there is _a_ chance you’ve managed to heal the damage done, but given I don’t know the extent of that damage or even what in the bloody, blighted Void did this, other than it had magebane in it.  Lots of magebane.  Very strong, very powerful magebane.  You know how healing works—Maker, you know it better than most.  I don’t have to explain it to you, Hawke.  Sometimes we have to work backwards from the knowledge we have.  The less knowledge we have, the less prepared we are to undo the damage.”

The last length of bandage falls like an autumn leaf drifting from its bare branch to the ground.

Amelle is suddenly—and perhaps not entirely inexplicably—afraid _._

“Can I look?”

“Try,” is all Anders says.

Swallowing hard, she first brings one hand to her face.  Anders has applied and reapplied the balm to her cheeks, nose, and forehead—the damage was not unlike a particularly bad sunburn, he’d told her—and the skin is tight and itchy, but it doesn’thurt anymore.  Her eyes, though… she doesn’t know how they feel.  She pries up her lids, which is slow work; her eyelids feel… gummy.  Should they feel gummy?  She isn’t sure.

What she is sure of, when she finally pries her eyes open, is that she can see as well as she did before Anders took the bandages off.

From Anders’ whispered curse Amelle knows her expression tells all.  She takes a short breath, and then another; her throat tightening with tears, but the answering prickle never makes it to her eyes.  She realizes, with a sort of detached fascination, she can’t even _cry._

“Is there… anything?” Anders asks.  There’s a rush of magic that makes her mana ripple in answer, and Amelle somehow knows he’s conjured a ball of heatless flame similar to her own.  His fingers are beneath her chin, turning her head this way and that, and she can _sense_ him watching, examining, _studying_ her.

“I can’t—” She presses her lips together, then catches the upper between her teeth until the sob tightening her throat subsides.  “There’s nothing.”

Another swear under his breath.

“Tell me,” she says, hating the quaver in her voice.  _“Tell me._ ”

“Your eyes aren’t… responding to light. Any light.”

Amelle closes her traitorous eyes, as much out of habit as anything else, and takes a deep, steadying breath.  She wants to cry, wants to fling herself down on the bed and swear and scream.  She wants to do any number of things that, in the end, won’t help her a damn bit.

 _Think,_ she tells herself.  _Maker’s bloody balls,_ think.

“What else have you tried?” she asks, mind racing, combing over everything she knows about her own abilities.  “What can _I_ try?”

He hesitates.  “While you were unconscious I tried a number of different spells and potions, but the magebane was resistant to all of them—even lyrium potion.”

Amelle falls quiet a moment.  “That’s odd.  Lyrium’s meant to counteract magebane.”

“Not so odd.  Could just be a matter of concentration; if what was in the bomb was more concentrated than the lyrium in potions…”

“Then lyrium potion might make a dent, might help _a little_ …”

“But not quite enough,” he finishes for her.  “Exactly so.  And according to Varric,” Anders adds, his voice taking on that strange timbre it always takes on when he’s about to mention Fenris, that _I don’t like him but I am determined to be an adult about this so please take note_ tone, “the first thing Fenris did after you fell was administer lyrium potion.”

“So I’m… potentially less blind than I might’ve otherwise been?  If you’re attempting to comfort me, Anders, I might suggest you try harder.”  She’s trying to joke, trying to cope with a reality she’s not prepared to cope with, but the words come out sharper than she intends and the bolt of guilt lancing through her breast immediately afterward is enough to make her sigh, shaking her head.  “You didn’t deserve that.  I… I apologize.”

“I’ve heard worse.  Hold still.”

She does, and is rewarded with the cold tingle of ice salve as Anders applies fresh ointment to her face.  “Worse? From me?”

He chuckles.  “Especially from you.”  After another thoughtful pause, he continues. “It’s possible such an early dose of lyrium potion did help. I just can’t begin to guess how.  This may just be something that takes… time.”  The ointment applied, there’s a soft clink of glass as he puts the jar away.

“Time and healing.”

“Your… manner of healing spells do differ from mine. For all we know they may differ in a way that will help.”

“Throw everything we have at it and hope something sticks?”

“I wish I could give you a… a better answer, something more useful, more definitive.”  A short pause before he speaks again.  “I’ve… had opportunity to examine the remains of the weapon Varric brought back.  It’s constructed much like his tar bombs, but filled with lyrium and corruptor agent—”

“As you said.  Recipe for magebane.”

“From what I can gather, it was meant to create a… flash of sorts.  It’s intended to incapacitate—”

“Allowing whoever’s set the bloody thing off ample opportunity to finish the deed.”  Anders sighs an affirmative and Amelle tips her head back against her headboard, eyes still closed.  As long as she keeps her eyes closed she can at least _pretend_ she’s in the dark voluntarily.  “Well.  At least I’m not dead?”

“You do seem to have a knack for avoiding death.”  There’s movement again, Anders rustling around for something that turns out to be fresh bandages.  She sits still as he winds the fresh linen over her eyes, around her head.

When he’s finished, she settles back against the pillows.  “I suppose that’s better than the alternative.”

#

A week.

She rests partially because Anders tells her to, but more because she knows what awaits her in the Fade.  Amelle returns to familiar surroundings, and it isn’t long before she has built herself a perfect replica of her home.  Perfect down to the paintings on the walls, down to the tea-set that had belonged to her grandmother, down to the considerable amount of Griffon’s dog hair clinging to everything _._

Perfect but for the emptiness.  But she hasn’t resorted to recreating her friends.  Not yet, anyway.

On her way down the stairs, Amelle conjures a pot of tea with the power of a thought, and when she opens the door, it’s to find the steaming teapot sitting on her desk.  What she doesn’t expect, what she absolutely _did not anticipate,_ is to find _herself_ waiting for her in the library.  She’s standing by the fire, hands linked behind her back as she stares into the flames.

One eyebrow arches as Amelle strides forward, the door closing behind her.  “I wasn’t expecting company,” she says, wondering furiously how this happened—she didn’t do it, certainly—and who or, more precisely, _what_ is wearing her face.

And then her copy turns to face her and Amelle finds herself looking into eyes just a little too green to be her own.  It is then she realizes her image is slightly translucent.  She takes a step closer, unable to shake the growing sense of familiarity the longer she looks at the spirit.

“Hello, spirit healer,” it says, and it’s unaccountably strange to hear her own voice coming out of her own mouth.  Or not _quite_ her own mouth, as is in fact the case.

“Hello,” she says, the word coming out a slow, cautious drawl, her inflection almost that of a question.  “I suppose you’ll just laugh if I ask if we’ve met.”

The… spirit—yes, she decides she’s going to give it the benefit of the doubt for now and call it a _spirit_ —gives Amelle a long, curious look, hovering just on the brink of amusement.  Finally, it—she?—nods and says in a voice so like her own and yet with a peculiar echo, “We have met. I would not be here at all if I had not first made your acquaintance at some point.”

“Well that’s… good.  Do you mind if I ask how you made it?”

The spirit smiles, and it’s a beatific sort of smile Amelle has never known to grace her own lips, not anywhere she can see it, at least.  She walks closer, holding both hands out and before Amelle can think to react—or retaliate—the spirit’s taken hold of her hands, and she suddenly _knows_.

“Oh,” she breathes, looking down at their joined hands.  The spirit’s hands are so warm on hers; even here in the Fade, the warmth is astonishing. Amelle knows that warmth, knows that touch; she knows it intimately, because it is what happens every time she taps into her powers as a spirit healer.  Hands, warm and comforting and _sure_ over her own.  “Oh,” she says again.  “It’s… you.”

“It is I,” the spirit— _her_ spirit—says, bowing her head as she relinquishes Amelle’s hands.

“Things must be more dire—direr?—than I thought if my Fade spirit’s decided now’s a good time to introduce herself.”

The spirit looks… _confused_ is probably the best word for it. Puzzled. “Your physical body is hurt.”

“You noticed that too, huh?”

“I felt it when it happened.  The weapon doused your mana and severed your connection to me.  It was… troubling.”

“Magebane,” Amelle explains, moving around back to her desk. She notices there are now two teacups instead of one and she wonders if that’s her doing, or the spirit’s.  Deciding it doesn’t matter, she pours both and takes a seat on the divan, holding one cup out expectantly until the spirit takes it.  “It’s nasty stuff.  Anders isn’t sure there’s anything to be done.”

“And you’re so sure he’s correct?” The spirit asks, sipping thoughtfully at the tea.

Amelle does the same; it’s perfectly sweetened with just a splash of milk.  “He is the one who can see right now.”

“You place too much value on that particular sense, Amelle Hawke,” the spirit says, leveling a look at Amelle.  “Sight does not a better healer make.”

“It would help,” Amelle replies with a deep sigh, “if I could see the problem.”

“But you cannot.”  

“So I see.  Or _not_ , which is the problem.”

“Then you must learn to work _beyond_ your current… limitations.”

Amelle wakes with those words echoing through her head. The linen bandages are still in place, familiar pressure against her eyes, but the words, those words in her own voice echo back to her: 

 _You must learn to work_ beyond _your current limitations._  

For as long as Amelle has known her power, she has healed herself.  Knowing the Creation school and healing spells allowed her to mend her own scrapes and recover more quickly from sickness; since becoming a spirit healer, she hasn’t fallen ill once and minor cuts and scrapes heal with barely a thought and a breath of mana.  She knows healing. It is, by now, part of her.

With a hesitant breath Hawke’s mana once again flexes and flows and surges inside.  She draws in a breath, deep, so deep her lungs ache and burn with it, and she reaches down, pulling at that energy, letting it fill her veins until her skin is buzzing with it.  She knows her power well, the taste, the feel, the scent of it; she knows it as well as she knows the scar on her thumb.  She twists it, shifts it, pushes it, until the buzz tingles hotcold beneath her skin, until that sensation, so like a feather brushing against the nape of her neck _,_ like warm hands upon hers, like someone standing behind her—like all of these things, and yet none of them. Her Fade spirit is there and Amelle knows her hands are aglow with healing energy.

With trembling, clumsy fingers she pulls the bandages free, waves of hotcold power radiating from her hands and onto her face and neck until she’s fairly shivering from it.  Then the linen falls—her eyes are open and the world is dark, so very, very dark; she can’t even see the glow she knows is coming off her hands.  A spike of fear and denial swamps her so completely, so suddenly that she momentarily forgets what she can do, what she’s _about_ to do.

“Calm down,” she murmurs to herself, taking one deep breath and then another.  “In about five minutes this is going to be a really great story.”

 _Learn to work_ beyond _your current limitations._  

She places both hands over her eyes and concentrates on her mana, on the spirit, on the thrumming through her bones, in her blood, on her skin.  She concentrates and pushes that energy free through her fingertips, feeling the hum of it across her skin, tingling with the cold of it, prickling with the heat.  Again and again she releases wave after wave of energy; it’s flowing through her and around her and she’s certain the fine hairs along her arms and neck are standing up.  She pushes and pushes and _pushes_ until the power doesn’t just crackle through her blood and bones and dance across her skin; it’s pulsing outward and inward and all around, with every breath, every sigh.  Though she’s got her hands over her eyes, and _oh,_ it’s thrumming through her head all ice and fire and frost and sparks—

_“Hawke!”_

Fenris.  

Far faster than it grew, the spell dies, sputtering out, leaving her hands stiff and numb, her skin damp with sweat, her heart pounding with exertion.

The world is still dark.  She blinks, turns her head, holds up her hands—hands she _knew_ were alight moments before—but there’s nothing.

_Nothing._

Disappointment clutches at her throat, and now her lungs feel too tight, and the power pounding through her head only feels like the bitter echo of a headache.  She doesn’t  understand— _doesn’t understand it_ ; she has her magic back, she’s a _healer_ , she can—

“What do you want?” The words snap out like a whip, frustration rendering them sharper than they might otherwise have been, but Amelle is _angry_ , angry her magic failed, angry Fenris caught her amid such a failure, angry at the blighted bloody bastard who did this to her to begin with, and furious with the Maker for letting it happen at all.

She can sense Fenris’ hesitation.  Wherever he’s standing, she’s almost sure he’s watching her with a guarded, wary look.  She knows the look.  She can’t see it, but she knows it.  He’s watching her like she’s a skittish horse or snarling, wounded dog.

“You should be resting.”  The strain in his words weighs heavily upon them; he’s trying to keep the words from coming out too sharp, too harsh, and yet the rebuke is clear, as is the worry.  Amelle hates being the cause of such strain, and frustration with herself, with her situation, licks higher inside her, like a flame. 

“I was,” she answers, lifting her chin—it’s the only act of defiance she’s got right now, and she wants, needs defiance.  But it’s a poor shadow of strength and she knows it.  “And now I’m not.”

“You must rest.”

He sounds too… _reasonable_ , but Amelle feels like being contrary; despite knowing she’s being petty into the bargain, she keeps her chin lifted.  “I have my magic back.”

“So I saw.”

“Well.  At least one of us could see it.  Was it a particularly impressive display?”  There’s a tremor in her voice despite the brittleness of her tone; it’s part despair, part anger, and she hopes, _prays_ Fenris doesn’t notice.

But notice he does.  Though his feet are silent against her carpet, her skin prickles in anticipation the closer he gets.  Her mana, she realizes, responds to Fenris as well, rippling and jumping with anticipation rather than uneasiness, as if he’s calling out to her, and every part of her sings back in answer.

“You are meant to be resting,” he says again, his voice low.  Patient.  The strain—likely a result of catching her in the midst of some particularly draining healing magic—has subsided.  He’s decided not to acknowledge her retort.  She knows she should be thankful for it, but she isn’t.  She wants a fight and knows he won’t give it to her, damn him.

“I’m not tired.”  It’s a lie, of course.  However much magic she just let loose, it wasn’t an insignificant amount.  Such an expenditure when she is only newly recovered has left her aching inside, in that quiet spot where her mana lives, leaving her feeling scraped and bruised throughout.  She _is_ tired.  Tired and frustrated and—that was meant to work, it was _supposed to work_ —and she has no idea what to do next.  The longer she waits, the greater the likelihood whatever damage has been done will be irreversible.  

 _Work_ beyond _your current limitations._  

Fenris doesn’t argue with Amelle. He doesn’t call her on her lie, either.  He simply sits upon the bed with her.  After a moment she reaches one hand out, letting it coast across the coverlet until her fingers find his.  

“There’s been… no change,” she finally confesses, with difficulty. “Anders—my eyes aren’t responding to light the way they should.” She swallows hard. “They aren’t responding at all.  And I…”

“Thought using your own mana would prove more effective on an injury inflicted on you.”

“I thought it was possible.”  With her free hand she massages her forehead. “I was sleeping, and there was a dream, and I thought…” The words lodge in her throat and it takes several seconds to make them form. “I thought it would work.”

A warm, calloused hand cups her cheek and Amelle starts a little before turning into the touch and closing her eyes. A deep, unsteady breath. Then another. And another.

“I will not tell you not to try, Hawke.” His thumb rubs a slow line along her cheekbone. “I will only warn you to be mindful of these attempts. Magic wielded in desperation does not always produce the desired results.”  After a moment, there comes the shush of fabric, and Fenris begins the slow task of returning the bandage to her eyes.

He’s right, of course. Desperation is a double-bladed sword that can result in miracles or disaster depending which way the mana shifts.  And Amelle is desperate.  She is desperate and afraid; a toxic combination, and she knows it.

“Well,” she says, trying to push her tone to lightness, but there is a tremor in it that belies the truth aching in her chest, “at least I know I can’t go any blinder.”

“There are worse things than losing your sight, Hawke,” he says, running a hand over her forehead, his fingers sliding into her hair.  “There are always worse things.”

She wishes she didn’t know how right he is.

#

Another week, and Amelle sleeps now more than she ever did.

More than—if she is bluntly honest with herself—she truly needs to.  But still she sleeps, still she slips into the Fade, into her home where the deep leather armchairs glow against the roaring fire, where sunlight streams through the window, pouring through a bottle of wine that throws a long narrow shadow, tinted purple, where plush rugs are woven red and gold beneath her feet, where polished wood gleams and _she can see._   She tells herself it is so she can heal, so she can confer with her healing spirit on a solution for this condition, but in the deepest shadows of herself, Amelle can feel the uncomfortable truth of it unfurling, stretching out weed-like tendrils that clutch and grip and _pull_.

She doesn’t want to leave.  She wants to be where she can _see._

Fenris is the one whose concern makes itself known first.  He asks if it is… problematic for a mage to spend so very much time in the Fade, and the timber of his voice tells Amelle he already knows the answer.  Anders hovers between concern for Amelle and defense of her actions; he tells Fenris she would not sleep if her body didn’t need it—she hears them just on the other side of her dreaming, arguing in hushed tones that are not quite hushed enough.  But even Anders has his doubts; they linger in his words, in his tone, hidden like ghosts he does not want to confront.

It is to her eternal shame that she does not tell any of them she is undamaged in the Fade.  She does not lie, not precisely—she understands his worry, but she is certain not a single one of them will understand.  

And so she returns.  Over and over again, for days on end, until she is spending more time asleep than awake.

One day, however, she finds herself standing on the front stoop of her home, the front door locked.  They sky is violently purple above, and the houses are nothing more than flat facades hanging in midair, their windows gaping mouths through which she can see nothing but the Fade’s horizon.

“You endanger yourself, spirit healer.”

Whirling on the stoop, Amelle finds herself once again face to face with her likeness.  The spirit’s expression holds no accusation, but Amelle doesn’t think she’s imagining the warning in the echoing voice.

“I can’t—”

“You are not working beyond your limitations.  You have instead decided to ignore them and cling to what is not real.  Your kind were not meant to live in the Fade, spirit healer.”

There is nothing she can say that will not be the excuse it is.  

“I want to _see_ ,” she breathes, her throat going tight.  “I don’t—it’s so… _dark._   I don’t— _I can’t…_ ”

The spirit takes a step back and looks up at the Hawke Estate looming above them both.  Though Amelle knows—she is absolutely certain the inside of the house is every bit as richly detailed as she remembers, when she looks up the windows of her home are open and empty, showing nothing but the lurid sky beyond. Amelle fights a shiver. 

“I cannot keep you from returning,” the spirit says.  “If you truly wish to remain, I cannot prevent it.  My kind do not interfere, only observe.  But know you will never grow here.  You will never learn.  And if there is a chance for you to heal, it will not happen here.  This is place you have built is not a place for healing—it is a comforting illusion, and like all illusions, will poison you if you let it.”

Even as the spirit says these words, a chorus of cloying phantom voices, hardly louder than the softest whisper, teases at her, coaxes her, tempts her.

 _Stay,_ it breathes, tickling the inside of her skull unpleasantly _._   _Stay and you will see forever.  You will see into the future and past, into men’s hearts and minds.  Stay and the sights and secrets of the world will be spread before you._

_Stay._

Amelle wakes with a gasp, her eyes opening to darkness, but the sheets curled in her fists and the mattress against her back are solid and real.  The nightdress clinging to her sweat-damp skin is real, as is the cold trickle of perspiration along her temple.

She will begin working beyond her limitations, she promises herself.  And she will begin by sleeping only when her body requires it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Given that Amelle's a mage, it seemed remiss of me not to count dealings with the Fade as a sixth sense, even if it's the second one listed. :)


	4. Hearing

Fenris is reading to her.  It is… something like normal, and Amelle has been craving _normal_ for some time now.  He’s reading to her from a thick book of tales that survived the trek from Lothering, survived the rats in Gamlen’s hovel, and, most recently, survived Isabela and Anders switching out books in her personal library with smut and manifestos, respectively.  The binding is cracked and worn, and every page turns with a dry rustle, but it is full to overflowing with stories that live vibrantly in her memory, so much so that she can see every tale Fenris relates to her.

As he reads on, Amelle closes her eyes and relaxes against the pillows, and she finds this is not _so_ different from those early reading lessons. Fenris struggles only rarely with certain words now, and she can usually guess the word in question. Long gone are the days when he had to _spell out_ the word troubling him, and Amelle realizes as she listens to his voice as he tells the story that he’s gotten quite good.

Then the door rebounds off the wall, shattering their peace with a sharp _bang_ that—despite everything—nearly sends Amelle leaping to her feet, hands alight with lightning and fire.  Startled and driven by reflex alone, she pushes to her knees and thrusts out her hands, defensive mana tingling around her fingertips.  Fenris swears, the chair scraping loudly across the floor, but then a curious brand of silence follows, and there’s nothing of the sliding grind his Blade of Mercy makes when he pulls it from its sheath.

Before Amelle can ask, an all too familiar voice fills the room:  “Come along, Hawke, we’re going for a walk.”  Isabela pauses and lets loose a chuckle thick with salt air and spiced rum.  “Oh, that _was_ clever of me.  I rhymed and everything.  Someone be sure to tell Varric.”

Amelle breathes again, pushing her mana back down as she tries to slow her galloping heart.  “Isabela.”

Fenris finishes her thought with roughly as much grace as usual as he grinds out, “What do you want?”

“Didn’t I say?  There was a rhyme, Fenris. Don’t tell me you weren’t listening.” She exhales a deep, put-upon sigh. “It’s been two _weeks._ Time for Hawke to leave her sickbed.”

Another silence follows, and Amelle can only surmise that it’s one filled to the brim with Fenris’ glare.  Her guess turns out to be right, though, when the pirate huffs a mighty sigh.  She can almost _hear_ Isabela planting one hand on her hip and thrusting it out.  “Listen, Broody—Hawke is neither contagious nor lame.  Neither of you can give me a single reason why she’s got to stay in her bloody bed this whole while.”  A positively _lascivious_ silence follows.  “Unless, Fenris, you’re the one keeping her there.”

“Isabela,” Amelle tries, hoping she sounds… reasonable.  Yes, reasonable would be good.  Reasonable, in fact, would be excellent _._   What she sounds, though, is strangled.  “I’m… not sure how… wise that would be.”

“Right,” drawls the pirate. “Hawke, you’re forgetting I’ve seen you blind drunk and still able to navigate a set of stairs properly. We’ll only go as far as you like.  We don’t even have to go outside if you don’t want. But you are going for a walk.”  And she’s Captain Isabela now, no doubt about it—no room in her tone for argument.

“I’m in my bedclothes, you know.”

“Oh, I _know_ , sweet thing.”  And Isabela is leering, Amelle is certain of it. “But if you think that’s going to put me off, you’re going to have to try harder. You have clothes, and I can help you into them.”

“Or out of them?” Amelle drawls, making the joke before Isabela can get there.  

The pirate chuckles.  “Time and place, kitten. Time and place.  The way I see it, you don’t need _very_ much help. Doubtless you’ve dressed yourself in the dark before.  I’ll provide assistance—or I’m sure Fenris will be only too happy to lend a helping hand. But you are leaving that bed, one way or another.”

When it becomes evident Isabela will not be dissuaded, and that happens quickly, Amelle, catching the… strange, strained note in Fenris’ voice, suggests Isabela help her dress.  While they have been alone together since the… incident, Amelle has discouraged anything… moresince then.  They’ve been alone together, but they have not been _alone and together._   And while her hands itch to touch him and her skin aches to be touched, she cannot imagine what kind of lover she’d be now _._   She imagines clumsy fumbling and mortifying misdirection and she—selfish though it is, and Amelle knows it—she isn’t sure she can bear such embarrassment, not now.  Not yet.

To her credit, the pirate says not a word until the door closes and Fenris’ footsteps fade into silence.

“You know it as well as I do.”  The wardrobe door opens and closes.  “You need to get out of this room.”

“I’m not sure I do know it,” Amelle retorts, but without heat.  She is weary and frustrated and so very tired of blackness where her sight used to be. “Where precisely am I meant to go?”

“Somewhere.  _Anywhere._   People are asking about you.  Maker’s balls, I had to talk Elegant out of paying you a visit, and you can thank me for that later.  Preferably with something shiny.”

“Elegant isn’t that bad,” sighs Amelle, carefully pushing herself to the edge of the bed and setting her feet on the floor.

“Please,” scoffs Isabela, as Amelle pulls the nightdress up over her head. Isabela takes it and curls Amelle’s fingers around familiarly soft material.  “There.  It’s your blue one.  There’s the bottom, here are the sleeves.  The problem with Elegant is she thinks she’s the bloody Maker’s gift to potions.”

Amelle dresses herself slowly, but Isabela’s not wrong. About the dressing, at least; Amelle’s never had a problem with Elegant.  Isabela helps with some of the tricker laces and hands her one leather slipper and then the other, waiting patiently as Amelle pulls them on her feet and stands up.

“There we go, kitten,” she murmurs, putting Amelle’s hand on her arm and guiding her out of the room.  “Pretty as a painting.”

It’s not quite the same as trying to navigate the house in the middle of the night.  Night has never been quite this black, quite this impenetrable.  But Amelle keeps one hand on Isabela’s arm and the other on the bannister; in this fashion they take the stairs one by one.

“Is anyone else here?” she asks, adjusting her grip on Isabela’s arm.

“Hmm.  You tell me, sweet thing.”

The question catches her off-guard and it’s luck alone that keeps Amelle from missing the next step.  “What?”

“It’s your house,” counters Isabela pertly. “You ought to know if anyone’s in it.  You tell me.”

“I didn’t know _you_ were in it.”

The pirate lets out a snort.  “ _Naturally._ ”

Pausing midway down the stairs, Amelle tilts her head and holds her breath, ears straining.  The fire is crackling in the hearth, Griffon’s snores a soft rumble beneath.  

“Aveline’s not here,” she murmurs, half to herself.

“What makes you say that?”

“It’s Tuesday. She takes Griffon to train with recruits on Tuesdays. So either she’s not come by yet, or she’s come and gone already and poor Griff is sleeping it off.  But she’s not here.  Not right now.”

“All right.  Anyone else?”

Amelle lowers her foot to the next stair.  She very nearly misses the dry paper-rustle coming from the library, so soft is the sound.  “Fenris is still here,” she says in an undertone.

“Of course he is.  Please, Broody’s hardly left your side.  At least _try_.”

Another few steps.  “Sebastian and Merrill are here, but Anders isn’t, and Varric’s in the kitchen with Orana.”

Isabela’s peal of laughter is sudden and delighted and Amelle smiles to herself for having surprised the pirate queen.  “All right, I’m going to have to _insist_ you tell me how you did that.”

“Fenris is in the library,” Amelle answers in an undertone, “which is also _Anders_ ’ preferred perch.”  She takes a few more steps down the stairway.  

“So?”

Amelle allows herself a crooked grin.  “If Anders were here, there’d be arguing.”

Isabela chuckles again, then takes Amelle’s elbow, her callused fingers warm and her grip sure.  “You’ve four steps left before the landing.  Careful now.”

Amelle steps carefully as she speaks.  “As for Orana, I smell—it’s either her sticky buns or her Orlesian sweet-bread, but it’s one of those two things, and if Orana’s baking, it’s doubtful she’s wandering very far from the kitchen.”  She tilts her head, listening hard.  “And given _that,_ and the fact Varric’s been here every single day and he has _yet_ to miss Orana taking _anything_ out of the oven, I’m wagering he’s in there.”  Finally her feet sink silently into the plush rug at the bottom of the stairs, and though it wasn’t nearly as difficult or terrifying as Amelle had feared, she is glad to be done with that particular bit of navigation for the moment.

Isabela steps heavily from the last step onto the landing, with such force her necklace jangles lightly.  “All right.  And Sebastian?”

“He’s also been here every single day.”

“So that one’s just a guess.”

“And,” Amelle adds archly, “Sebastian hums when he’s fletching arrows.”

A long silence follows, and unless Amelle missed her guess it’s a rather embarrassed one.  

Then, a cough.  “I… beg your pardon, Hawke.  I fear you may be mistak—”

“Oh, but you do, Sebastian,” comes Merrill’s voice.  At Amelle’s elbow, Isabela exhales hard.  “It’s quite nice, though.  I thought so, anyway.  You have a lovely voice.”

“In any case,” says Isabela, “Hawke’s right about you being here, Choir Boy.”  A pause and a chuckle.  “She’s right about the humming too, as it happens—oh, he’s blushing.  Hawke, you’ve made Sebastian blush, you horrid thing.”

“I think, Isabela,” Amelle remarks dryly, “you’ve managed that one on her own.”

“Hmph.  Well, how did you figure out Merrill was here before she spoke and solved the mystery for you?”

Amelle shrugs.  “That… was a guess.  More of a chance she’d be here if Anders isn’t, and I’m almost certain I heard someone around the plants, probably watering them, though that _could_ have been Orana I suppose, except she’s baking.  And Merrill does like making sure I don’t accidentally kill things.”

Merrill’s voice chirps up from the front foyer. “Oh, that’s very good, Hawke.”  A brief, fleetingly awkward pause, and Amelle can almost _hear_ Merrill’s bare toes digging into the carpet.  “I didn’t realize you… you noticed I came by.”

Amelle tips her head towards Merrill’s voice.  “Orana’s mentioned what a great help you’ve been.  I’m grateful you’ve been stopping by.”

This time Amelle _definitely_ hears the soft back-and-forth scuff of a bare foot against carpet.  “You… you’re welcome.  It’s—it’s the least I can do to help.”

A rush and rustle of fabric comes next, followed by the soft thump of booted feet against the carpet, and the next time Isabela speaks, her voice is coming from across the room.  “I’ve a present for you, sweet thing.”

“Well,” Amelle tosses back, gripping the bottom of the bannister, fingers tracing the swirl of carved wood, “you should’ve told me that beforehand. I wouldn’t have made such a fuss about navigating the stairs.”

“You’re right that Anders isn’t here, but he sends these.  Varric helped find them, but it was my idea, _naturally_ —I once knew a man in Salle who wore a pair just like this—”

It dawns on Amelle that Isabela may have forgotten that Amelle doesn’t— _can’t_ —have the first idea what she’s talking about.  “A pair of…?”

Cool metal slides across her temples, settling atop her ears as a light weight rests upon the bridge of her nose.  Reaching up, she touches one slender arm running from her ear to temple, her fingertips ghosting across circles of cool, smooth glass.

“Spectacles?” she blurts on a laugh.  “Isa _bela._ ”

“Blondie says you’ve got to be careful of those baby-greens,” Varric says, in between mouthfuls of whatever it was Orana was baking in the kitchen.  “Until the two of you can figure out how to fix whatever got broken, you need to protect your eyes.”

“By wearing glasses,” Amelle drawls, still certain this is part of an elaborate joke whose punchline she can’t quite grasp.

“The lenses are tinted,” supplies Sebastian, closer now, and Amelle can’t help but wonder what kind of audience she’s got clustered around her.  “I’ve seen their like before myself.”

Merrill gasps and there’s the soft clap of skin against skin; Amelle can almost see the elf clasping her hands to her chest.  “Oh, that’s a lovely shade of blue, Hawke!”

“Blondie says the tint’s protective; it’ll shade your eyes,” Varric supplies, but there’s something in his tone, a thread of uneasiness, as if he’s expecting Amelle to take the news badly—or, worse, as if Varric himself has interpreted this as Anders giving up on the endeavor. She wonders which it might be.

“Yes, well,” Amelle says lightly, though _light_ is the last thing she’s feeling, and there’s something cold and heavy in her stomach, because _what if_ Anders has given up?  It’s been two weeks with no change, but… it’s _only been two weeks._ They’ve faced down cases more hopeless than this, haven’t they?  She forces her lips into a smile so none of them can see how tight her jaw is.  “Don’t want to risk them getting any worse, do we?”

Silence settles over the room like snowfall.  Somebody—Sebastian, perhaps—coughs softly, and Amelle swallows hard and tries not to grind her teeth; they can see her face even if she hasn’t seen it herself in some time, and she has to be mindful— _more_ mindful—of her expressions.  

And then there is the softest creak by the library—the door with hinges that aren’t quite noiseless, the door she’d always meant to ask Bodhan to oil—and the silence takes on an entirely different cast.

“Fenris,” Amelle says, turning her head slightly.  “What do you think?  I’ve been told they’re quite fetching.”

The silence doesn’t break.  It doesn’t even _bend._

Varric heaves a mighty sigh and Amelle wonders what he sees in Fenris’ face that she doesn’t.  “Hawke’s got to leave the house sooner or later, elf.”

The unspoken message is as clear as any clarion call: Hawke has to leave the house because otherwise she’ll never learn her way around Kirkwall in the event this _is_ permanent.  Hawke has to leave the house so people will stop whispering about the Champion’s absence—of course this only means they’ll whisper about the Champion’s _blindness,_ which is hardly any sort of improvement.

They none of them know what to do.  Nobody’s given up, that much she’s almost sure of, but aside from Amelle and Anders’ near-constant stream of healing magics—which don’t seem to be _working_ —Amelle understands there’s little left for them to do in any sort of practical capacity.  Nothing to do but wait for the magic to take hold, if it ever will.

They are her friends.  They are trying to _help._ She knows the uncomfortable hush for what it is: uncertainty. Unfamiliar terrain.

Fenris’ silence, though, is more enigmatic.  And without any sort of visual cues, it’s nearly impossible for Amelle to tell what he’s thinking.  Her heart clutches and her fingers twitch, stretching out from her palm in an aborted movement—could she accurately read his expression with her fingertips?  Would she feel the furrow between his brows, the hard line of his lips, the tightness at his jaw?  He’s looking at her, she _knows_ he’s looking at her, she can _feel_ it, and yet…

“Do you wish it, Hawke?”

“Do I…”

“Do you wish to venture outside?” he asks, but there is something more in his tone.  Something strained and frayed, something not-quite-right.  

It’s only been two weeks.  Only two weeks.

Only two weeks without sight.  Two weeks without tears—she can’t cry; her eyes no longer produce tears and she has to manually moisten them with a topical potion Anders crafted for her.  Two weeks of potions and magic and nothing resulting from their efforts but more darkness.  Two weeks shouldn’t be long enough to leave her feeling hopeless, but she isn’t sure what more they can do, and at what point should she stop expecting some change in her condition.

All they have is magic.  The only tool in their arsenal.  But what happens when your only tool isn’t enough?  Amelle hasn’t reached that point, not yet, but… what happens then?  She has no idea.

She can’t give up—that much is obvious, that much she has already _decided_.  But neither can she sit around waiting for a miracle.  Yes, she will have to leave her bed.  She will have to leave the house.  If— _if_ she can no longer be what she was, she will have to decide what she is now, what she wants to be.  There are many things she will have to do.

For now, though, leaving her bed, leaving the quiet familiarity of her home and trading it for birdsong and leaves rustling in the breeze—for now, that will be enough.

“How about a turn around the garden?” she says, finally.  She wouldn’t mind sitting on the little stone bench beneath the yew tree for a while.  When nobody says anything, Amelle adjusts her grip on the bannister; her hands have gone all sweaty.  “Well. I’ll find my own way there, shall I?  I live here, I ought to know how to find the garden—”

It is Fenris’ hand that catches her elbow.  She knows it by the strength of his fingers, by the rough lines of calluses across his palms and fingers, by the barest whisper of leather as he moves.

“You know, we could probably train Griff to lead me around,” she says, stepping away from the stairwell.  Her mabari gives a great shake, the little copper coin bearing his name jangling where it hangs from his collar, and then lets out an approving huff before coming to nose her other hand.  She reaches down and scratches the spot at the back of his head, between his ears.  “You could do it, too, couldn’t you?” she coos.  “My good boy, my _smart_ boy.”

“And I’m sure it would be nothing more than coincidence if the only place he ever leads you is the butcher’s,” Isabela drawls.

Griff barks, and if there’s ever been a more indignant sound coming from a dog, Amelle hasn’t heard it.

“Aye, I think Griffon’s more than qualified,” Sebastian muses.  “Considering what Hawke’s trained him to do so far.  And if any animal could manage such a thing, it’s a mabari.”

“He is frightfully smart,” agrees Merrill.

More commentary from Griffon, who sounds as if he’s in full agreement with Sebastian and Merrill.

Amelle’s fingers wander further into the mabari’s fur.  “I’ve heard worse ideas, you know,” she tells Griff.  “And it’s about time you started pulling your weight around here.”

The mabari snorts, then licks her hand.

“No, sniffing out slavers doesn’t count.”  

Griff whines then barks and the heavy thump of his paws against the carpet—and Isabela’s indignant yelp—is enough to tell Amelle the dog is bounding happily around the room.  Amelle smiles despite herself, and it’s one of the first smiles she hasn’t had to force or fake.  Griffon is a lummox and a brute and only as smart as he _wants_ to be at any given time, but there have been no awkward silences from Griff.  He noses her hands looking for treats as often as he ever did.  She has no doubt the dog knows something is amiss, but he has never once _treated_ her as if something is amiss and Amelle suddenly feels an enormous swell of affection for the huge, fuzzy beast.

“Want to go out, Griffy?  Out?  Out to the garden?”  He’s been cooped up nearly as long as she has, after all, and while training with Aveline’s men takes the edge off, it’s not quite the level of activity he’d been used to before.  The fresh air will do them both good.  Griffon barks and, paws pounding rhythmically against the floor, gallops out of the room.

Fenris guides her away from the stairwell and Amelle’s slippered feet glide quietly across the carpet. It’s difficult to _walk_ and not give in to the urge to _shuffle_ , sending her toes out cautiously to seek out loose flagstones or table-legs, but she trusts Fenris, trusts him with her life, so clearly she should be able to trust that he won’t let her walk into a rogue armchair.  

An idea occurs to her suddenly, and Amelle stops, gently pulling her elbow from Fenris’ grip.

“Hawke?”

“I have an idea,” she says; the doorways are not quite wide enough for them to walk through side by side—she knows that much already—but perhaps…

Amelle slides one hand up Fenris’ arm, coming to rest on his shoulder; using him as her point of reference, she situates herself behind him, keeping one hand upon his shoulder.  If she’s behind him, following his steps, there’s less chance of her stumbling, or knocking into a doorframe or end-table.

The memory of Fenris’ words twist up like smoke: _If there is a future to be had, I will walk into it gladly at your side._

She’d rather him by her side as well, but now is not the time to confuse metaphor with practicality.

“There,” she says finally, hoping her smile is a convincing one.  “Lead on.”

Fenris guides her unerringly, as she knows he would, taking her past the library and down the hall, past two guest rooms and a third room used for storage, filled to capacity with old staves she has no use for but can’t bear to sell, maps and books and what feels like endless piles of detritus she has collected since first setting foot in Kirkwall.  She still knows her house, still knows it by its sounds and smells, just as she knows Varric, Isabela, Sebastian, and Merrill started talking about her in worried, hushed voices the moment she left.

“I believe he would be capable of such a task,” Fenris says, finally.  Griffon’s happy panting and claws clicking against the stone floor is enough to let Amelle know what he’s referring to.

“I think so too,” she admits.  It’s not hard to admit Griffon would do a fine job leading her around. It’s harder to admit she wants to _try_ , because such an admission tastes… something like defeat, and she has not accepted defeat, not yet.

They stop at the end of a long corridor and a series of clicks snap through the air as Fenris unlocks the door. It squeals in protest as he pushes it open and Amelle jumps a bit, making a face.  Fenris must catch her reaction, for he places his hand beneath her elbow again and says, quietly, “My apologies.”

“Don’t apologize for the door,” replies Amelle, placing her other hand on his forearm.  She adds, lightly—far more lightly than she feels—“It’s half the reason I even know where I am.”  But Fenris doesn’t reply, and she doesn’t know whether she finds it troubling or reassuring; he only helps her over the stone threshold and navigates her to the stone bench situated—and she knows it because she can _see_ it in her head, can see it when she walks the Fade nightly—beneath the yew tree.

They sit together in silence for too long, until Amelle exhales hard through her nose.  It is not _quite_ a sigh, but it is enough to reflect at least some piece of her thoughts.  

“Hawke?”

A dozen questions lurk in that word and Amelle reaches out, searching for Fenris’ hand, a faint spark of irritation igniting deep in her breast when he catches her seeking fingers— _let me find you, Fenris; let_ me _find_ you—but she clasps his hand all the same, twining her fingers with his, because that is not something she needs to see to know it is right.  She knows, too, that she doesn’t have to pretend out here.  Her optimism and determination aren’t false, but neither are they as unshakeable as she has probably led her compatriots to believe.  But here, out here, alone with Fenris and Griff, she can let down her carefully constructed walls, behind which live the Champion’s worries and fears and uncertainties.

“It’s so much easier _not_ to talk about things when I’ve got the covers pulled up tight and the bedroom door closed.”

He hums a small noise of assent.  “And now?”

Now she can feel the scattered warmth of leaf-dappled sunlight on her face, and she would give anything— _anything_ —to be able to see the patterns cast against Fenris’ hair, and the unfairness of that stings and pricks everywhere but her eyes.

 _Stop it.  Just stop it,_ she tells herself.  _People endure worse than this every bloody day. Stop_ wallowing.

“The longer I… avoid trying to… live with this…” she trails off.  “Isabela isn’t wrong.  I can’t sit around waiting for… for what might be an unbreakable spell to suddenly break.”

_You must learn to work beyond your current limitations._

Amelle swallows hard before plunging on.  “I need to… to decide what… what I’m going to do, what’s going to happen if—if this is permanent.  There are—there are decisions I’m going to have to make.”

There’s a pause, and it’s a terrible sort of silence, too deep and vast for all it only lasts seconds. “Decisions,” he echoes, his voice carefully, studiously level _._

“Let someone else be Champion of Kirkwall, for a start. You’d think they’d have runner-ups for something like this. You know, ‘If the Champion cannot fulfill her Championesque duties, someone else will take her place.’”

“Hawke,” Fenris begins, and oh _,_ she knows that tone, “do not—”

“Be foolish?” she scoffs.  “A bit too late for that, I’d—”

“—Think you are so easily replaced.”

It hurts when he says that.  Hurts her heart, makes it ache, and again Amelle misses, practically _yearns_ for the sensation of tears stinging her eyes.  “Not everybody would agree with you,” she says quietly, steadily.  “I’m not exactly fit for battle.  I could be the Kirkwall’s first pacifist Champion.  Though I’m not sure how well that would’ve panned out with the Qunari, but it might be worth a—”

And then Fenris’ hand is against her cheek and she turns into his warmth, bowing her head until her forehead presses against his neck, until the gentle sound of leather creaking presages his arms wrapping around her.

“Whatever it is you wish to do, whatever it is you wish of me _to_ do, it will be done.”  His voice is low and rich and deep by her ear, his lips brushing her earlobe, and she realizes with a pang this is the first time she has _let him_ get this close to her.  The first time since she woke to darkness that she’s let him _hold_ her like this.  The first time she’s let herself be held.  “But do not think for a moment I will let you send me away.”

“Wh-what?”  She stammers not out of surprise, but guilt.  Because she _had_ been thinking that.

“Do you think I do not know your words when you speak them?”  Fenris pauses and Amelle is nearly certain she can hear his heartbeat—or perhaps it’s her own, thundering in her chest—and then his arms tighten and his lips are brushing her temple.  “Or do you mean to tell me you did not intend to _spare me_ from your sightlessness.”

She flushes hot and bites her lip, glad her face is pressed against his neck.  “You… how… _how?_ ”

Fenris hesitates before answering, and she can hear so very much in the silences between his words.  “I…believe I would have done the same in such a position.”

Her laugh comes out barely louder than a breath.  “And I wouldn’t have let you.”

His arms tighten around her, the softest sound of leather, the whisper of material against skin.  “No, you would not have.”

“Bossy elf. What ever happened to _command me to go and I shall_?”

“Too much has happened since that night,” he murmurs against her skin. “I removed myself from your side once, and foolishly. Do not think I will do so willingly ever again.”  His hand runs up her back and over her shoulder, his rough fingers sliding against the fabric of her dress with a soft hiss that goes ragged every time his calluses snag on the material.  Those fingers find their way up her neck and up to her chin, resting there as he tilts her face up.  

Amelle has not let him this close to her in two weeks, and it isn’t until right now she realizes how much she’s missed this.  _This._   Every piece of it.  If she sinks into his arms, it is not because she is _weak._   It is because she knows she does not have to be strong _all the time._

“I am yours,” Fenris says, his lips so close to hers they brush and she breathes in the warmth of his breath.  

“Until the Void takes us both?”

“Not a moment sooner.”  And as his mouth slants over hers, birdsong and rustling branches are drowned out in a wave of pounding blood pulsing in her ears.

Two weeks.  It is not so long a time that she should begin to lose hope, but neither is it too short a time for her to learn, to prepare, to make sure she is not caught unawares should hope be lost.

At least she will not be alone.  Hers will not the only voice she hears in this darkness.  

###

Thunder is music all its own.  It is a low rumble punctuated by sharp, window-rattling claps, and in the intermittent silence rain pounds the roof—a low, steady note that sounds as if it could be held indefinitely.  It is not quite a roar, and it is while Amelle is sitting in the library, listening to the sounds of the storm, trying to name them and identify them and remember the way an iron-grey sky looks through streaming glass that she hears someone knocking at the front door.  There is a flurry of activity in the foyer—Bodhan fussing about it not being fit for man or beast outside, Orana bringing a towel from the kitchen for the visitor, who accepts the offering gratefully.

Slow, measured steps until the library door opens.

“Maker’s breath,” Amelle says.  “You didn’t have to hurry on my account.”

“Bodhan’s note said you had an important matter to discuss,” Sebastian replies.  “I was not inclined to let it wait.”

“It could’ve waited till the storm passed.”  Her grimace is an apologetic one, as she gestures to the chair she knows is across from hers. “You didn’t get soaked through, did you?”

“Even if I did, Hawke, your fire is warm enough.  There is nothing damp that won’t dry.”  The leather protests softly as he sits, and a curious silence follows.  “Is Fenris not here?”

Leaning back in her chair, Amelle rests her head against the cushioned padding.  “Varric got news of a nest of slavers operating out of Darktown.  Possibly new players.  It… seemed a good idea to discourage them.  He’s off with Varric, Isabela, and Anders.”

The curious silence shifts sideways into a surprised one.  “This is what it takes, then, for the two of them to work together.”

Amelle wrinkles her nose.  “Anders’ inclusion was rather at my insistence.  They weren’t going into Darktown without a healer—those were my terms.  And since I’m somewhat out of the game at the moment…”

“Still, it’s a comfort they can cooperate when the situation requires it.”

“I can’t say they’ll come out of this incident great friends, but…” she touches her face, lightly.  The places above and below her eyes that had been so burned, that would have scarred before her own mana had returned for her to heal herself.  “Anders has been a help.”

“I am glad.”

She clasps her hands together and smiles.  “But I didn’t invite you here to discuss what wrongs our compatriots are attempting to right—and whether or not they bicker the whole while.  I… have a—a problem.”  Pursing her lips, she shakes her head.  “No, it’s not quite as dire as that.  It’s… well.  I need your help, Sebastian.  I hope you are willing to give it.”

“I… Hawke, as always, if it is within my power to assist you, you need only ask.”

The words are a comfort, and she knows he isn’t saying them out of pity for her condition; this is Sebastian, and he has always been willing to lend his aid when she’s needed it.  “It has… been made clear to me—abundantly so—that I must learn to… work beyond my current limitations.  I may be able to find my way around my home, and I’ll probably even venture out of doors at some point—it will be a red-letter day when I go to the market and back by myself, I assure you—but there are things I… cannot do right now, no matter how badly I may wish it.”

Sebastian shifts in his chair, and Amelle can almost imagine him leaning forward attentively, bracing his elbows on his knees.  “Go on.”

They are interrupted by the library door opening; the light footsteps tells Amelle it’s Orana, and the sound of gently rattling china tells her the maid’s come with tea.

“Thank you, Orana,” Amelle says, tipping her head in the direction of the sound.

“It’s nothing, mistress.  The room’s gone a bit drafty and damp—Sandal’s on his way up with some dry firewood, but I thought you and messere might like something warm in the meantime.”  She sets the tray down and wastes no time pouring a cup and pressing teacup and saucer into Amelle’s hands.  She smiles her thanks, and there’s a flurry of activity as Sebastian rises to fix his own cup and Sandal comes in with wood for the fire.  Amelle simply listens to every movement—voices and footsteps and teacups all over the hollow thump of weight of fresh wood splitting the burning logs below—taking the sound in as if she could taste it, savoring each nuance the way she’d savor a sip of wine.

Once Orana and Sandal have left and Sebastian settles back into his chair, Amelle pulls herself from the reverie and smiles again.  “I… if my attempts to explore my desk are any indication, there is an imposing stack of correspondence awaiting my attention.  Letters I cannot read and cannot reply to.”  She taps the tips of her fingers together.  “I do not want to make anyone wait longer than they have to—I… need help answering my correspondence.”

She hopes he doesn’t ask why Amelle isn’t asking Fenris to help her with this chore.  His reading is improved, but there are no guarantees the penmanship in the missives she receives will be legible. 

But it isn’t Fenris Sebastian asks about.  “I—absolutely, Hawke.  I would be honored to assist you any way I can.”  He does, pause, though, and Amelle waits.  “I confess, though, I am surprised you aren’t asking Varric.”

A sudden peal of laughter bursts past her lips.  “Maker’s breath, Sebastian—I trust Varric as much as I trust any of you, but don’t tell me you don’t think he’d resist the urge to make his replies to my letters just a little more _dramatic_ than they might otherwise be.  I don’t need a storyteller—I need a scribe.”  She bites her lip, suddenly unsure—she hopes this doesn’t seem like a _menial_ thing she’s asking for help with.  Maker, just _asking_ for help at all has been difficult enough.  Answering letters is hardly the same as clearing out nests of slavers and raiders, and she hopes she hasn’t insulted him with the mundanity her request.

“As I said, I would be honored to be of assistance to you, Hawke.  Those words were spoken in earnest.”  Sebastian’s reply is such that his brogue has gone a bit thick, and Amelle realizes it is sincerity she’s hearing. “However it is you need me to help, I will.”

She takes no pains at all to hide her relief as she exhales, slumping back in her chair.  “Thank you.  Maker, you have no idea what a relief that is.  I—thank you, truly.  When… we can begin whenever you have the free time.  I don’t—I don’t want to assume you’ve got nothing better to do.”

“I have no pressing engagements at present.  We can begin this afternoon if you’d like.”

“I… would appreciate that.”

Sebastian’s reaction to the stack of letters on her desk is enough to tell her she was right to be concerned, but they work through them, one by one, and Orana keeps pot after pot of tea coming as Amelle listens to request after request after request, reciting replies for all, answered by the soft scratching of a pen against parchment.  By the time Fenris, Varric, Isabela, and Anders return from their Darktown errand, Sebastian has all but read himself hoarse.  But the stack of letters is smaller than it had been, and there is a bundle of replies to be sent out in the morning’s post.

Though she had to ask for help, Amelle feels somewhat less helpless, less useless than she had before.

###

Merrill is late.  Amelle, never one known for punctuality herself, normally wouldn’t be bothered by this, but she is keenly aware of the passage of time now, with very few distractions available to her.  Every tick of the clock scrapes across her nerves as she tries not to imagine what could have befallen Merrill to keep her nearly an hour past when she said she’d be by.  Could be anything from a ball of twine to templars, and Amelle’s sure—absolutely _certain_ the elf will not only have an amusing story for her when she comes through the doors, she will spend more than an hour telling it.

She looks forward to conversation now with the same relish she’d once saved for a good book.

Finally a knock sounds from the foyer and Amelle breathes a sigh of relief.  But it’s two sets of footfalls she hears, not only Merrill’s nearly-silent padding of bare feet against stone, but heavy boots and the sharp metallic sound of armor jostling with every step.  Heavy armor, from the sounds of it.  She does a bad job of suppressing a relieved laugh as she turns her head to the doorway.

“Caught Aveline on your way, did you Merrill?”

“I’m so sorry, Hawke, I—“

There’s genuine distress in her voice.  “It’s no trouble, really.  Aveline, sit down and—”

“Not Aveline,” a heart-twistingly familiar male voice says.  Suddenly Merrill’s apology makes so much more sense.

Carver.  She’s brought Carver here. 

“Hello, sister,” he says and—and Maker, he sounds so stiff and… oh, it’s hurt and disappointment and worry all rolled into one, and it’s turned his voice husky, but there’s still an edge to it, and it’s enough to make Amelle wince.

It’s not that she’s unhappy he’s here.  Quite the opposite, really—since he joined the Order, she’s kept an ear to the ground, trying to find out whatever she can about her brother.  He’s happy there, and that makes _her_ happy.  But it would be disingenuous to suggest—even imply—she kept this news to herself just so she wouldn’t trample on his contentment.  Part of it’s that, definitely.  But there is a larger part of Amelle that is apostate instinct, and that apostate instinct knows she is no match for any templar invested in apprehending her.  Not that she thinks for a moment Carver would do such a thing, but some of his fellows might, were they to learn about her condition.  Meredith almost certainly would.

Funny how that knowledge sits cold and unmoving as lead in her belly.  She’s cold all over, in fact, and the room is so suddenly silent all she can hear is the fire in the hearth and hear own heartbeat, pounding harder and faster than it had only moments ago.

It takes a moment for Amelle to speak.  Her mouth is too dry to manage it on the first attempt.  “Merrill’s… told you, then.”

“It’s not what you think,” he retorts—well, at least Carver’s feeling defensive too; that’s something at least.  “She was carrying—it looked like a staff, and she was carrying it through Lowtown.  I stopped her to tell her—”

“Carver only wanted to tell me I should be more discreet,” Merrill interjects.  Amelle realizes rather disjointedly that Merrill’s defending her brother.

“Except it wasn’t a staff at all,” her brother says.  “It was a—”

“It’s a gift, Hawke.”  There’s a peculiar edge to Merrill’s voice, and she can almost picture her sending Carver a sharply disapproving look.  When she speaks again, it’s gentler.  “It was… it was—well, it was meant to be a surprise.”

“Which Carver ruined,” Amelle says, far more lightly than she feels.  “Typical.”

“He hasn’t ruined it.  Not completely, anyway.”  Merrill’s quick, light step crosses the library floor, while Carver’s heavier tread follows at a much slower pace.  Suddenly, something is laid across her lap and Amelle’s brow furrows as she grasps it.  It’s wood, that much she can tell—long and slender, though not nearly as long as a staff—no _idea_ what her brother was thinking.  As her fingers explore the gift, they find twining grooves indented—carved—into the wood.  Amelle follows one line with her index finger, feeling the ridges as it twists and splits into another and another. Like vines.  Like Merrill’s vallaslin.  Like Fenris’ markings.

“It’s a… a walking stick,” she offers, sounding much less confident now.  “Though not so much to help you walk as to help you find your way.  If there’s anything in your path, you’ll know.”

“It feels—“ Amelle purses her lips and swallows hard.  “Did you… do this, Merrill?”

“Did I… did I carve it, do you mean?”  A whisper of sound follows—Merrill’s foot scuffing across the floor.  “Well.  Yes.  I… yes.  It didn’t take much time…”

“Thank you.”  There’s a lump in her throat that will not be swallowed away.  “Thank you so much.  It’s lovely.”  She runs her fingers, still following the intricate carvings, suddenly sad she can’t _see_ them.  After a moment, Amelle clears her throat.  “Merrill.  Would you mind—would you mind terribly seeing if Orana needs any help?  She probably started tea after you arrived, and…” 

The silence that follows is awkward, but only for as long as it takes Merrill to take Amelle’s hint.

“Oh— _oh._   Of course, Hawke.  I’d be happy to.”

Amelle waits for the library door to close.  She realizes, suddenly, that she’s holding her breath, and she exhales slowly.  Inhales.  Exhales.  Over and over again.

After the door closes, it’s Carver who speaks first.  “How… how long have you been like this?”

“Almost three weeks,” she answers quietly.  

“And how—how did this—who _did_ this?”  The helpless anger in his voice makes her heart twist.  It says, _who did this so I can beat them to a bloody pulp?_  

“Slaver.  He’s dead now.”

“Good.”  A darkly satisfied pause follows, but then, as it stretches out, the quality of the silence changes, turning longer and thicker than the others.  “…How?”

“A new application for magebane, as it happens.  Call the Tevinters what you want, but don’t call them lacking in imagination.”  Her voice breaks on the final syllable, and Amelle tightens her hands around Merrill’s gift until her fingers ache, but it doesn’t stop her lower lip from trembling.  “I’m sorry,” she says, forcing the words out no matter how choked they sound.  “I should’ve told you, and I didn’t—”

“Don’t,” her brother says, and yes, while it’s true she doesn’t want Meredith learning she’s sightless, it’s also true that her baby brother has been trying to do something meaningful with his life; he’s just started to come out from beneath her shadow and be who he was meant to be—he’s a grown man, and she’s still trying to protect him.  “Don’t, Mely.”

Carver hasn’t called her that since Lothering, when there were three Hawke children with a father, a mother, and a farm.  Amelle bites down hard on her lip, and her eyes sting suddenly.

Tears.  _Tears._

She hasn’t been able to cry in nearly three weeks.  Now, though, her eyes burn with tears.  If she weren’t so upset, she’d be thrilled.  She blinks and they spill over, trailing down her cheeks.  “I didn’t want you to know,” she says, swiping at her face.  “I didn’t want to tell you.”

The couch creaks as Carver relieves it of his armor’s weight, and soon something hits the floor with a metallic clang, then another, and soon her brother’s thick, broad hands—warrior’s hands—are holding hers.  Carver’s kneeling in front of her, and she realizes she hasn’t seen her brother since the day he left to join the templars.  She twists one of her hands free from his and reaches up slowly, fingers outstretched.  Her brother seems to know, somehow, what she’s trying to do, because he clasps her searching hand to his cheek.  Stubble rasps her palm and another sob tightens in her throat as a fresh wave of tears well up and fall.

They stay like that a moment, Carver submitting silently to Amelle running her fingers across his face.  

Now when he speaks, his voice is thick with emotion.  “Why haven’t you been able to… to heal it yet?  Why hasn’t it worked?  Your magic, I mean.  Why—you’ve always been able to heal… _everything._ ”

“I don’t know,” she replies, shoulders slumping.  “I wish I did.  I’ve tried.  I’m still trying.” She sniffles, miserably.  “Once my magic came back, I started working on it every day.  There are times when it feels… maybe like I’m almost there.  But it’s… it’s hard to explain.  Like watering a plant whose soil never saturates.”

“So it might… never.”

She takes a slow, deep breath, holds it a few seconds, and lets it out, just as slowly.  “It might not. I’m… I’m trying to prepare myself for that eventuality, while still refusing to give up on healing myself.”

“Is there—do you need—is there any thing—any way I can…”

She almost smiles at the way he’s tripping so awkwardly over the words.  “Help?”

“Yes.”  He’s fidgeting, she’s sure of it.  “Yeah.”

“Don’t tell anyone.  No one at all.  Kirkwall doesn’t need to know its Champion’s been blinded.  Maker knows there are some who’d love to take advantage of that.”

“The Knight-Commander, you mean.”

Well, her brother’s never been an imbecile, though in the past he’d more than once done an admirable impression of one.  “Meredith’s one name on a list, yes.”

“All right.”  He sits back on his heels and his armor settles again with pings and clinks. “What are you going to… do, if it doesn’t come back?”

This is the question she knows she’s going to have to come up with an answer for, much as she doesn’t want to, much as she wants to be sure of her abilities as a healer.  She’s given it thought, but giving it too much thought feels too like giving up—and Amelle isn’t prepared to do that just yet.

“I’d like to keep anyone else from finding out for as long as I can,” she admits.  “Everyone—everyone’s been helping.  Sebastian’s helping me with correspondence and Varric has been keeping an ear out for… things that need doing—I just don’t know how long we can manage it, how long I can keep anyone from finding out.  If it comes to that… I don’t know.  I could just leave Kirkwall behind and retire in obscurity somewhere.”  She sends him a smile despite the tear tracks streaking her face.  “Every village needs a scary blind witch who brews love potions of dubious origin.”

“Don’t be daft,” Carver says with a snort, sounding more like himself than he has since appearing in her library.  “I’m trying to be serious here, Amelle.”

“So am I.  Well, maybe not about the love potions.  I do have some pride left.  Besides, have you got any better ideas?”

He pushes to his feet again and begins pacing as he gropes for suggestions that might be helpful.  “I’ll… I’ll put in for a transfer.  If you leave, I’m leaving too.”

“You don’t mean that, Carver.”

“Don’t tell me what I mean and what I don’t mean, Amelle.”

“You like Kirkwall,” she points out reasonably.  “And the Knight-Captain’s had nothing but good things to say about you.”

This pause, unlike Carver’s others, thrums with surprise.  “You’ve asked?”

“Of course I have.  What kind of nosy elder sister do you take me for?”  Gripping Merrill’s gift in one hand, she slowly gets to her feet.  No time like the present to see how well this works.  Amelle lets the stick tap out in front of her as she takes tiny steps toward—well, where Carver’s voice was most recently, though she’s fairly certain he hasn’t moved.  As Amelle walks, she sends him what she dearly hopes is a bolstering smile.  “I haven’t given up on me yet,” she says, reaching out a hand.  Carver takes it and squeezes. “It… means a lot to me that you came, Carver.”

“Don’t see how I could have not.”

“Still.  Thank you.”


	5. Smell

It’s the bacon that wakes her, tugs her out of the Fade, out of the world she can see, away from her library and the books whose words she can read—her visits are not extended ones, though; she goes to bed and sleeps and dreams and wakes up again to face another day.  Once Amelle is awake, she remains in bed awhile, eyes still closed, breathing in the smoky almost-sweet scent; beneath it wafts the sugar-and-yeast scent of sweet-bread, all fruit-studded and fresh from the oven and still so warm the marmalade will melt mere seconds after she’s slathered it on.  When her eyes are closed, everything feels normal—as normal as she _remembers_ things being, anyway.  The smell of breakfast is calling to her, the pillow is soft under her head, the linens are warm with body heat, still smelling faintly of soap and the scent of outdoors, of sunshine and brisk winds.  When the laundry is fresh off the line, Amelle is sure she can smell a hint of rosemary and mint in the fabric—the plants closest to the laundry line—but the sheets have been on her bed a few days now and there is nothing left of the garden on the fabric.

She rolls over, pressing her face into her pillow and stretching from head to toe until her muscles quiver and threaten to cramp, and then she goes limp, listening.  Griff is still asleep, huffing little doggy whines as he chases rabbits in the Fade.  Beneath snores and whimpers, beneath the—no, no crackling in the grate; the fire’s gone out, then—is barely audible, slow, rhythmic breathing.  In.  Out.  In.  Out.

It doesn’t take long before Amelle’s breathing is in time with Fenris’ breaths.

She curls on her side, as close as she dares, and listens as he breathes.  She doesn’t dare touch him, because he will wake with a jolt; Amelle knows the reasons why that is and doesn’t want to remind him.  But she listens, eyes closed.  She imagines he is asleep on his stomach, head turned to the side.  She imagines his hair is mussed and tousled beyond the telling of it.  She imagines his back is bare and on display, trails of lyrium twining and spreading up his spine like a series of vines, the blankets tugged up only to his waist.  One lean, tanned leg stretches out from beneath the blankets. She imagines light chasing across his skin if she were to drag one finger up his spine, tracing lyrium lines.

Then an arm, heavy and, Maker, so _warm_ , slides around her waist and pulls her close.  On his side, then, not his stomach.  The rest, she realizes as her hands travel up his arms, to his shoulders and down his chest, then up again to trail gentle fingertips over his face—she loves his nose; she has a new appreciation for his nose now that her fingers trace it every day—then further up, carding through his hair, soft strands parting easily beneath her fingers…the rest is accurate.

“You’re awake,” she mumbles, twisting closer to him.

“I woke before you did.”  He eases his arms around her, keeping Amelle’s arms—and hands—free. It’s a newly-acquired habit, one she doesn’t see herself breaking, but she can’t quite still her hands when she’s with Fenris.  It is a poor substitute for _looking_ at him, but her fingers coast over his hands, his arms, up to his shoulders, along his collarbone, down again.  She touches his face when they are alone and she can almost— _almost_ track his expressions now.  It is nothing at all the same as _seeing_ him, but she’s learning.  A furrowed brow does not always mean he is scowling; she knew it was so when she’d been able to use her eyes, when she could take in the entire picture of him at once.  Lips pressed into a firm line does not always indicate anger.  Seeing is different from touching, from _reading,_ but Amelle _wants_ to know his face again and this… this is the only way she can learn it.  So she is learning it.  Slowly.

Then Fenris presses a kiss to her palm and Amelle stills.

“Did you sleep well?” he asks, his voice low and husky and the only thing she wants to hear for as long as she lives. As he speaks, he tilts his head against her hand and strands of soft hair tickle the pads of her fingers.

“Until Orana started making bacon, I was.”

They are slowly creeping back towards intimacy.  Before her… incident, Fenris slept in her bed more often than not, and if he was not in her bed, she was in his. There were still rare nights he preferred to spend alone, but they had been growing rarer and rarer.  Then she lost her sight, and Fenris spent more time by the side of her bed than in it.  Now, though… now they share a bed, and when Amelle wakes from nightmares where her eyes burn to dust in her head while she screams and claws at her face, it is Fenris’ hands shaking her awake, Fenris’ voice pulling her back.  He still touches her as if she might break under his fingers, and she hates that; despite his presence in her bed, they haven’t made love since before—since _before._   And normally she doesn’t… think about it much. She is too aware of her own propensity for fumbling now, and that alone will douse any libidinous urges.  Usually.

Right now, however, she is pressed against Fenris, her legs tangled with his, her hands resting lightly against his chest; she lies enfolded in his arms, his fingers stroking her skin, finding the sensitive spots in between her shoulder blades, or the top of her spine, or even further up her neck along her hairline.  His fingers brush _those_ spots and her breath catches and she bends, leaning into him, tipping her head forward until it rests just at the curve along his neck.  She breathes in the scent of him, the sharp pine pitch-leather-sweat scent, the sword oil that won’t ever fully leave his skin no matter how long he scrubs, the skin-scent that is his and his alone.

She inhales again, deeper this time, letting the different smells—but still Fenris, all Fenris—roll around in her head, and if she didn’t know better she’d be sure she was getting _drunk_ off the scent of him.

Then her stomach emits a loud, demanding growl. The mood is broken.  Fenris huffs a soft breath of laughter, his arms tightening around her; her forehead is pressed against his cheek and when he drops a kiss into her hair, she slides her own arms around him and squeezes.

And then Amelle realizes, with an abruptness and power that nearly steals the breath from her lungs: _this is what she wants._   This.  A moment that—despite its many complications—is, for that sliver of time, so wholly _free_ from complications.  Right now,  her sight does not matter.  Right now, whatever may happen five minutes from now _does not matter._ She is entirely immersed and yet… strangely detached from the moment, as if she could reach out and touch it, and when she does picture touching it, these scant seconds appear in her mind like a flawless globe of gold latticework, like a perfect drop of rain.

This must be how it feels to live in the present, without the future or the past coloring it.

“I think,” she says, her voice muffled against his chest, “I want to go downstairs for breakfast.”

“Very well,” Fenris says, kissing her forehead again before rolling away from her.  The bed squeaks as he leaves it, and it is cooler for his absence.

“Wait,” Amelle says, sitting up and easing herself to the edge of the bed.  “What are you doing?”

“I thought to get your dressing gown.”

Pushing to her feet, Amelle bites down on her bottom lip and takes a few hesitant steps.  “Let me find it.”

It is an eloquent silence that follows, and she can imagine the push and pull of indecision creasing Fenris’ forehead.  He will not deny her this—she knows him too well to think for a moment he would—but he is… uncomfortable with the prospect.

Well.  Time to make him a little _less_ uncomfortable.

“Unless, of course,” she adds breezily, “you lot have rearranged the bedroom when I wasn’t looking.”

“Hawke,” he replies, a lifetime’s worth of reproach loaded into a single syllable.  

She smiles in the face of his exasperation, a not-so-secret part of her relishing it.  “Then where’s the harm?”

More silence, and then a resigned sigh, followed by another gentle squeak as he sits back down on the bed.  “I take your point.”

Her smile widens to a cheeky grin, fading only when Amelle diverts her attention long enough to picture her bedroom in her mind—she has only just seen it, after all, and though that had been the Fade and this is most assuredly _not,_ she has faith enough in her own memory that she can at least recall the basic floorplan of a room she’s lived in for years.

“First thing’s first,” she says.  “Is Griffon still asleep by the fire?”

A pause, followed by another squeak from the bed.  “Yes.  He has not moved.”

“Good. The little blighter’s quiet when he wants to be.  I used to trip over him all the time even when I _could_ see.”

“I dare not ask how you managed that.”

“You wait for him to sneak up behind you and lay down right by your heels three seconds before you take a step backwards, and then you’ll see what I mean.”

A soft, rough chuckle.  “I stand corrected.”

Squaring her shoulders and—though it doesn’t make any difference, not really—closing her eyes, she pictures the room.  The bed is behind her—Fenris’ side, which puts the fireplace behind her as well.  It’s a bit tricky to gauge her own spatial awareness; the sensation is a bit like being tossed into a void where it is hard to imagine anything existing beyond one’s own reach.  There are things hovering past her fingertips, and though she can’t feel them, she knows they are there.

She takes a steadying breath and puts one foot out in front of her, then another, suppressing the urge to put her hands out and feel her way along the furniture.  The wardrobe is in the corner by the hearth and so she continues stepping cautiously—still trying so hard not to shuffle—across the stone floor until her bare toes meet the thick, soft rug.  She turns, keeping her right foot along the rug’s border so she doesn’t wander off cockeyed.  Unless the rug is crooked, in which case she’s doomed for cockeyedness.  But she’s pretty sure it’s not, so this feels like a solid plan.

“Griffon,” she calls out.  The mabari snorts as he wakes, the sound coming somewhere in front of her.  “Griffy, go see Fenris. Mama doesn’t want to kill herself tripping over you.”  Griffon lets out a low, happy _woof_ , followed by the padding of massive paws against the rug, and the click of claws against stone.  “Good boy,” she croons.  

There is no point in rushing—this is not an endeavor meant to impress anyone, but rather a test for _herself._   She keeps her steps slow and measured, and when her toes run over the ridge that marks the rug’s border and then touch cold stone, Amelle turns to the right.  The rug ends right in front of the hearth, which puts her, unless she misses her guess, several arms lengths’ away from the wardrobe.  Two steps in and Amelle finally gives in to the urge to bring her hands up—had she been thinking, she’d have counted how many stone squares lay between the rug’s edge and the wardrobe, but perhaps that is an exercise for another day.

Finally— _finally_ her palms bump against smooth, polished wood and now she’s close enough to smell cedar.  There’s only a second or two of clumsiness as she runs her hands over the doors to find the curved metal handles, and when she pulls them open, it’s with a sense of accomplishment that rivals surviving two weeks in the Deep Roads.  She does not mark the moment with a victorious cry, but it’s a very near thing indeed.

Her dressing gown is—as it always is—hanging from a hook inside one of the doors, and she pulls it free, deftly finding the collar, and then soon the arms and then—

Fenris’ fingers resting lightly on her arm.  “Hawke?”

“Yes?”

Very, very gently he takes the garment from her.  “It was inside out,” he explains, before pressing it back into her hands.

“Oops.”  Victory makes Amelle giddy and her hands shake as she slides into the robe.  She ties the sash around her waist carefully—to bumble now because she was moving too quickly is _not_ acceptable.  When the robe is tied tight she smiles, and it is a wide, toothy grin. Perhaps she is silly to relish this, to refer to it as a _victory._   She has walked from one end of the room to the other and put on her dressing gown.  It is hardly a high dragon she has slain, but she is pleased with herself nonetheless. “Ta-da!”  

“Impressive work,” Fenris tells her.

Amelle’s smile doesn’t falter.  “And now, downstairs.”

Fenris is furrowing his brow at her.  She can feel it; the air shifts with its movement, like far-off clouds gathering on the horizon presage a storm. “I beg your pardon?”

“I want to walk downstairs,” she says, going on quickly before he can interrupt.  “I want to walk downstairs without assistance, sit at the dining table without assistance, and I would very much like to have breakfast.  What I would like even better is for us not to be discussing the matter until it is time for lunch, because there is bacon downstairs, and bacon waits for no man.  Or woman.”  She waits a beat of silence.  Then two.  And then she says again, softly and sincerely, “I want to do this, Fenris. More importantly, I… I _need_ to do this.”

A million objections voice themselves in his silence.  Drawing in a deep breath, Amelle lifts her chin resolutely, which lasts all of four seconds before a soft chuckle comes from her side, a gentle puff of air caressing her cheek.

“I see you are determined.”

“I am.”

“You will have no objection, I trust, to my following you down the stairs?”

“None at all,” she replies, sweet relief shuddering down her spine like a cool breeze on a hot day. “You have to eat too.”

Before they leave the bedroom, however, Fenris places a gently restraining hand on Amelle’s arm.  Her question doesn’t even have time enough to pass her lips before he presses a piece of smooth, carved wood into her hand—the walking stick Merrill had carved for her not long after Amelle’s first trip down the stairs.

“If you are to make such a journey without assistance, I would ask you take this.”

Pride makes her want to argue, but practicality and realism are enough to keep her from indulging her pride.  She adjusts her grip on the long, light stick, sending the end out to test her surroundings—a chair there, and next to it is the trunk with all that remains of her years in Lothering.  Griffon lets out a curious woof behind her, but he follows, as if he knows somehow it is important not to get her in her way just then.

She approaches the stairway cautiously, and when the tip of her stick slides past that first step and down, Amelle reaches out, searching fingers hunting for the bannister.  Her fingers find the smooth wood, and she grips it tightly, not entirely able to overcome the strange sense of vertigo settling over her.  She breathes in and out, slowly; she is at the top of a stairway she has ascended and descended countless times without help.  She managed it with Isabela guiding her.  She will manage it alone _now._  

In truth, the stairs are more daunting than they’d been with Isabela’s help, and it is a long, slow trip.  But the smell of bacon and bread is even stronger out on the stairwell, and Amelle’s growling stomach urges her on as she takes each step carefully, memorizing the number of steps and their steepness.  Fenris, she notes, remains behind her, and she decides to take that as his tacit support in this endeavor of hers—she’d be more annoyed if he’d insisted on walking in front of her, where he’d be able to catch her if she stumbled.  It is up to her not to stumble.  

Oh, she’s certain he’d catch her anyway, but she appreciates the gesture all the same.

The trip to the kitchen is an arduous one—Amelle had never noted how many corners there were to turn to get there—but worth every second when she hears Orana’s surprised gasp.

“Mistress!” she cries, genuine dismay in her voice.  “What are you—I was just preparing a tray.  You didn’t have to come downstairs; I would have brought it—”

“Relax, Orana,” Amelle says, using the stick and her hands to feel her way around to the small kitchen table—there is no need to eat at the long, polished monstrosity in the formal dining room—where she sits with a long, relieved breath, as if she’d just run full-speed to The Hanged Man and back.  “I wanted to.”

There’s a strangely-charged pause, broken by Fenris’ reply:  “She truly wanted to.”

An accusatory glare, then.  Dipping her head, Amelle smothers her grin.  “I promise,” she says.  “I… it’s time I started to coming to meals like a real person, rather than being served in bed like an invalid.”  She lifts her chin, adding, “Not that I don’t appreciate it, but… I’m not the type of person who was made for others to wait on her, Orana.  You’ve got to know that by now.”

Silence follows, though it’s broken by Orana’s soft, rueful chuckle.  “Very well, mistress.”  

The tea is hot, the bacon is crisp, and the honey-slathered bread fairly melts on her tongue.  It is the most delicious meal Amelle can remember eating.

###

A thunderclap very nearly—but not completely—masks the front door slamming, but even if it had, the storm outside does nothing to muffle Griffon’s happy barks or Orana and Bodhan’s surprised shouts.  

If Amelle has to guess, the silly lummox just shook the entire Waking Sea all over the front foyer.

Her guess is confirmed moments later when the library door opens, followed by the click of claws against the floor and the clink of Griffon’s copper nametag as he bounds around the room, the scent of wet dog curling off him, the tendrils of scent filling if not the whole room, the immediate space like clouds of damp doggy miasma.  He approaches Amelle and first nudges her hand and then licks it before padding before the fire and collapsing with a self-satisfied huff.

“He gave the men a runaround today.”  Aveline’s voice comes from the doorway with the sound of her footfalls.  Behind her Amelle can hear the commotion as Sandal and Bodhan clean up the water Griff shook from his coat.  “He’s always a little more rambunctious in the rain.”

“He’s always been that way,” Amelle answers with a fond grin.  “Get him a little wet and he’s a puppy all over again.  Used to drive my mother to distraction.”

“I bet.  It’s not like rain in Ferelden’s any sort of short-lived thing, either.”

Amelle’s grin turns into a laugh as she remembers a much younger Griffon splashing through muddy puddles.  “Exactly. Maker, but he used to tear around the house like his tail was on fire afterward.  Knocked Carver flat on his backside, once.  But then he’s always been a bruiser.”

“Griffon,” Aveline asks, “or Carver.”

“Both, now you mention it.”

The soft, hesitant sound of a throat clearing comes from somewhere near the fireplace.  It’s Orana—there’s no one else it _could_ be. “Mistress, I’ve put some water on for tea.”

“Thank you, Orana.”  Amelle wrinkles her nose.  “It’s suddenly a bit _damp_ in here.”  Griffon lets out a _woof_ that sounds entirely too satisfied to Amelle’s ears.  “Are there any cinnamon buns left from this morning?”

“Certainly not, Mistress,” replies the maid, and not because there _aren’t_ any buns left—Amelle knows better—but because Orana isn’t the type to give that morning’s buns to someone in the afternoon.  Honestly, it’s a miracle Amelle can still fit into her own clothes, some days.  “There are almond cookies in the oven.”  Indeed, there’s the faintest hint of something sweet hovering just beneath the more mildewy notes of Griffon’s damp coat.  “They should be out soon.”

“What do you say, Aveline?  Can we convince you to stay?”

“You could’ve convinced me to stay with the cinnamon buns, Orana,” Aveline says.

“Well,” the maid sniffs.  “Maybe some to take home, then.”

“That’ll be fine,” Aveline tells Orana, thanking her before the door closes with a muted click.

“The sad thing,” Amelle murmurs, leaning back in her chair, “is that she probably truly can’t understand why anyone would want half-day old buns.”  After a moment, she sighs and crosses her ankles, swinging them slowly.  “You don’t normally stay to visit on days you take Griff to train with the men.”

There’s the faintest hesitation before Aveline replies, but it’s a pause that speaks volumes.  “No,” she says, then exhales.  “No, I suppose I don’t.”

“Sit down, then.  You make me nervous hovering by the door like that.”

Aveline’s footsteps follow, the clink of her armor—the smell of rain comes in with her, but on Aveline it’s… cleaner somehow.  

“Did anyone give you a towel, or did Griffon overshadow you entirely?”

“Bodhan took care of it, don’t you worry.”  Another pause, filled only by the creaking of the chair Aveline’s sat in.  Finally:  “How are you… how are you _doing_ , Hawke?”

Amelle sighs, slumping back in her chair.  “Maker, you don’t ask the easy questions, do you?”

“Never have.”

It should be an easy question with an easy answer.  Were she anyone else right now, it likely would be an easy question.  She wants to be honest without being harsh, without sounding as if she’s either too optimistic or too cynical regarding her situation.  She draws in a deep breath and holds it, thinking, carefully choosing her words so they’re… honest.  So they’re free from the self-pity that cripples her less often, but also free from unrealistic sugar-coating.

“I’m better than I was,” she finally says.  And it’s true.  “Some things are getting… less difficult.”  She does not use the word _easy,_ because there is little about this that has been easy.  “There are still days I feel… useless in a way I—I’ve never felt before.  I haven’t quite figured how to fix that yet.”

“Useless…” Aveline echoes, surprised.  “Hawke, how can you—”

She’s interrupted by the door opening again, and by the sound of the step and the clink of china, Amelle knows it’s Orana, come back with the tea.  Neither of them speak as the maid carries in tea and cookies, mostly because Amelle doesn’t like to speak sharply around the maid if she can help it; Orana worries, and Amelle’s condition has the maid… hovering, a bit.  She smiles as Orana presses a teacup into her hands and sets something on the little table next to her.

“Cookies to your left, Mistress, and a saucer for the teacup.”  Sure enough, when Amelle runs gently questing fingertips over the small table’s surface, she finds two little plates; the empty saucer is just a couple of inches to the right of the cookie plate.  The sweet smell of almonds is infinitely better than wet dog, and Amelle plucks up a cookie and takes a bite.

“Thank you, Orana.”  Aveline echoes Amelle’s thanks, and the maid’s light footsteps go to the door, which she closes softly behind her.

Amelle takes a sip of her tea.  “I believe you were asking how I can say something like that.  Easily.”  She waves a hand vaguely behind her.  “Word hasn’t spread—and won’t, if I can help it.  But people are still writing, still asking for help, still applying to me for assistance and favors and my good word, and I can’t… I can’t help them.  I can’t do any of it.  I’ve had Sebastian answer the ones with clear-cut replies, but anything that requires me to do something…”  She drops her hand into her lap and shrugs.  “The outside world hasn’t changed.  And if I want to keep it from finding out I’ve changed… something needs to be done.”  She falls silent again, grinding her teeth and scowling, hands curling into fists.  “And I am bloody tired of sitting in a chair doing nothing, day after day after day—I need to _do_ something.  But given I can’t do what I’d like right now, I suppose the better way to phrase it is, something needs to be _done._ ”

“You don’t hear me arguing, do you?”

“No, and thank the Maker for that.”

Aveline chuckles, but it sounds… wrong to her ears.  Forced, maybe.  She doesn’t like the idea of Aveline having to force her laughter, even for Amelle’s benefit.  Especially for Amelle’s benefit.

“What do you have in mind?” she asks Amelle.

“Varric’s already been taking Fenris and Isabela—sometimes Sebastian, sometimes Anders, sometimes even Merrill—on outings to keep a handle on the slavers in Darktown.  And they’ve been doing fine without me.”

Aveline snorts.  “So I’ve heard, though I’m not sure I’d use the word _fine_ to describe it.”

“Are you accusing Varric of telling me less than the absolute unvarnished truth?” 

“Perish the thought,” she drawls, tone heavy with irony.  After a moment she takes a bite of one of Orana’s cookies.  “Maker’s blood, this is _good._   Anyway, go on.”

“You lot keep… keep doing it, going out without me.  We—the only thing that’ll change is me.  But I… I can tell you—I’m still getting letters.  Word about this,” she says, gesturing at her eyes, “hasn’t spread.  People still need help—they need a Champion, and they think that’s just me, but I’m not vain or stupid enough to try and take credit for—”

_“Hawke,_ ”Aveline interrupts, her rebuke hanging heavily in her tone.  “Don’t be—”

“Don’t be what?” Amelle cuts in, shaking her head.  “Do you believe for one moment that I think I could have managed _any of this_ on my own?”

“Single combat with the Arishok?”

Now it’s Amelle’s turn to snort.  “Single combat would’ve killed me—nearly did—if I didn’t know how to fix myself?  No, Aveline.  If I’m—if I call myself a Champion, I do it with the full understanding that I have that title because I have friends like you.  And… people still need help.  So if… if things keep coming up—and they shouldn’t cut into your duties, either.”

“To the Void with my duties, Hawke.”

Amelle laughs.  “I know how much you don’t mean that.”  She lifts the cup of tea to her lips and drinks.  “I can’t go.  But I can do something.  Delegate, maybe.”

“Be there in spirit, if not body?”

“Exactly.”

Aveline’s teacup clinks and she takes a sip.  Amelle’s never realized until now how _quiet_ Aveline is while she’s eating.  “Who’re you going to get to make all your awful jokes?”

“You mean Varric hasn’t been?  I’ll have to have a word with him about that.”

###

“It’s a harness.”

Frowning, Amelle lightly traces the long curve of rolled leather, the thick, supple straps and softly chiming buckles.  And thought the beeswax-and-leather scent of it makes her want to inhale just a little more deeply, Amelle’s eyebrow arches all the same.

“It _feels_ like something naughty out of one of Isabela’s books, Varric.”

Varric chuckles, and it makes Amelle smile to hear it.  The dwarf has been… strangely reserved around her lately, his humor—and laughter—muted and forced.  “I thought you said you didn’t read that kind of trash, Hawke.”

“Yes, well, now that I can’t read any longer I don’t see the point in denying it anymore.  My copy of _The Circle Blackguard_ is more than a little dogeared.  Go find it if you don’t believe me.”

“ _Your_ copy, huh?”

“Obviously I needed my own,” is her arch reply.  “Isabela’s is practically in tatters.”

He chuckles again, and… yes, she decides, it sounds like it ought to. “Naturally.”

“So tell me,” she says, fingertips still trying to make heads or tails out of the contraption, “how’s this supposed to work?”

“First you need a dog.”

“Got one of those.”  Amelle calls for Griffon, tilting her head and listening hard for the steady thump of paws against the floor.  Griff trots in, nudging Amelle’s knee with his cold nose once before sitting next to her.  “Varric’s brought a present for you, Griffy,” she says, holding up the harness so the buckles jingle softly.  The dog makes a bewildered sound deep in his throat, but otherwise tolerates it well when Varric fastens the puzzle of straps and buckles to him, explaining as he goes, letting Amelle feel every step in the process.

When he’s done, Amelle can’t help but laugh a little.  “I hope you’re willing to walk me through that a few more times.”

“As many times as it takes, Hawke.”  And as she feels the harness and the way it fits Griffon, Varric asks, “So, Broody still around?”

“Mmm.  He’s upstairs sleeping.  It… was a late night last night.  He, Aveline, Sebastian and Isabela went encountered giant bloody spiders in the oh, so simple and straightforward raider hideout Isabela got word of.  And let’s all pretend to be surprised that Isabela needs to check her sources more carefully.”

“There was a party and I wasn’t invited?”

“More like a trap.  With giant spiders.  You heard the bit about the spiders, right, Varric?”

There comes a soft rattle of a gloved hand against polished wood.  “Bianca skewers those things like a hot knife through butter.”

“Or a hot crossbow bolt through spider-guts?”

“Or that, yeah.  So what do you say?  Feel like taking this thing for a spin?”

“I think I could be persuaded to attempt a quick walk around Hightown.  Will I have my favorite dwarf for company?”

“Please.  You think I’d drop off a gift this fantastic and not stick around to see it in action?”

Taking the rolled leather handle, Amelle pushes to her feet.  Griffon stays perfectly still beside her as she adjusts her grip.  “Not bad,” she murmurs—whoever crafted the harness took into consideration the height of a mabari.  “What do you think, boy? Interested in taking your Mama for a walk?”

Griff lets loose a bark that practically rattles the rafters—a definite affirmative.  

It’s no time at all before she’s ready to venture outside.  Griffon, who’s never been a difficulty on a walk, keeps a sedate pace beside her, all the way to the door. And Amelle realizes she hasn’t set foot outside other than occasionally sitting in her garden.  Her hand rests on the door handle, but she doesn’t twist it, not yet.

“People are going to see,” she murmurs, half to herself.  Something about that realization makes this… real.  Perhaps a little too real.  Before this point, there always seemed like there’d be a chance, even the slightest chance she’d regain her sight.  Going outside where people will see her means she is acknowledging this injury—but does it mean she’s _accepted_ it?  Amelle isn’t sure she has. “They’re… going to know.”

“They’re going to know what?” replies Varric breezily.  “That the Champion got injured—took a blow to the face—and she’s on the mend?  She’s got all the best healers in Kirkwall working on her, too.  Well.  Two of the best healers.”  There’s a pause and soon Varric’s hand is on her arm, gently squeezing.  “People don’t know anything but what they’re told, Hawke.  And I’m the one in charge of telling them what they need to know about you.  And all anyone needs to know is that you’re convalescing.”

“So when do they learn the truth?”

He squeezes again, more firmly this time.  “Do _we_ even know what the truth is yet?”

Amelle has to admit, they do not.  All she has are guesses layered over fears, covering them like a too small blanket.  She is trying to come to terms with the possibility that this may be a permanent change, but that is a less imposing concept when she’s safely ensconced behind the walls of her own home.

“No,” she finally admits.  “Not yet.”

With that, she twists the knob and opens the door, stepping outside.  The warmth of midmorning sunlight streams down on her face and the world smells sharply of autumn, the crisp chill turning the air dry, sharpening the salt tang coming in off the sea.  The scent of woodsmoke meets her nose and she inhales deeply, feeling the familiar scents settle in her head, surrounding her like furniture in a familiar room.

There’s noise, too, more than she’s grown accustomed to these weeks, and it’s almost unnerving how voices come from one direction, bouncing off stones and reverberating back and forth before echoing off into another direction entirely.  It’s hard to hear—to _listen_ —and before long Amelle’s hand is slick and sweaty against the harness’ handle.  It’s too much noise, too many voices coming from too many directions, too much, too much, too—

The thick, comforting squareness of Varric’s hand settles on her forearm again.  “Come on,” he says.  “This way.”

Amelle doesn’t correct him, doesn’t tell him it’s easier for her to _follow_ , rather than be led by the arm; she’s too glad to be getting away from the cacophony of voices, leaving its distant, bouncing echoes behind them.

It’s far quieter where he takes her, and Amelle’s about to ask where they’ve gone when she catches the faintest whisper of incense on the air.  The woodsmoke is stronger here too.

“Sorry about that.”

She shrugs.  “It’s been a while since I’ve been outside.  I probably ought to have expected that.  The noise used to get on my nerves even on the best days.”

“Never used to make you turn grey, though.”

She shrugs again.  “A lot of things aren’t the way they used to be.  Am I going to complain, or am I going to figure out how they are now?”

“I know which way I’d write the story.  But hey, I’m just your narrator; you’re the source material.”

She smiles a little bit as they walk through the chantry courtyard, Varric on one side, Griff on the other.  “And how’s my story so far?”

“Never boring, Hawke.  Never boring.”


	6. Taste

“I’ve brought you a…” Fenris hesitates, but it’s the brief sort of silent stammer that indicates he’s not quite sure what to _call_ whatever it is he’s brought her. 

Amelle shifts on the couch, tipping her head back against a cushion.  She is better at gauging where someone is standing in the room; she has learned to pick out other cues than visual ones—the creak of a board, the thump of footsteps.  Fenris is easier than most when it comes to picking out his location; he does not hover indecisively in doorways, he does not tromp about louder than necessary.  He moves, as far as Amelle can tell, as he ever did; she’s just better at listening.  When he addresses her, he usually—as is the case now—stands in front of her.  

“Yes?” she prompts, patting the cushion next to her.  It has been a quiet day, save for Sebastian’s visit earlier.  They worked through a pile of correspondence together, and while Amelle was glad for the distraction, she’s been finding herself battling boredom and loneliness like never before.  She is used to occupying herself, either with a book or grimoire, or an ill-advised (but never boring) stroll through Darktown.  She has been restless lately, and it is a restlessness all the trips around Hightown will not cure.

Perhaps Fenris has noticed this as well as he’s noticed so many other things.

“A… gift,” he finishes, and Amelle smiles, because in her mind she can see the furrow at his brow, the way he dips his head when he’s discomfited, and the barest whisper of uncertainty, as if whatever it is he’s done might not be… enough, somehow.  The last is patently ridiculous, of course.

“A gift?  Maker’s breath, what’s the occasion?”

“There… is none,” Fenris says, and the air stirs with the mingling scents of leather and sunlight, clean sweat and the marketplace as he sits next to her.  Warmth radiates off him and she sends her fingers out, searching; when her fingertips brush his thigh, she scoots closer.

“No occasion?”  Amelle tilts her head, considering.  “Fenris?” she asks, her voice sliding into something playful and chiding.  “What did you do?”

“Do?” he echoes.

“Yes.  Do.”

“I…” he stops, and there’s the softest rustle of paper.  “It… perhaps it was foolish of me—”

“It is _never_ foolish to bring me presents.”

“—But… there was an Orlesian merchant in Hightown, selling…”

“Feathered fans?” she teases.  “Hats?  Hats made of feathered fans?”

A soft crack follows, and soon something presses against her lips.  Amelle breathes in, but it quickly turns to a gasp.  Barely managing not to groan aloud, she parts her lips and accepts the offering.

“No,” he said, “it’s—”

The second the small square hits her tongue, exploding into taste—familiar, rich notes that travels back into her brain and down her spine and now, now Amelle does give in—now she _does_ groan. “ _Chocolate_.”

“I…”  Fenris pauses to cough. “Yes.”

The confection slowly melts against her tongue, and when she bites down, there comes the faint sugar-crunch of something soft and candied in it.  Heat wars with the smooth not-quite-bitterness of the chocolate and Amelle savors it, inhaling deeply, breathing in and letting it permeate the whole of her palate.

“You brought me,” she says, swallowing, the flavor lingering in her mouth like an echo, like the memory of a kiss, “chocolate with ginger?”

“I did.”

“I could kiss you.”

Then there is the tentative brush of fingertips along her jaw.  Her breath catches as those fingers travel down the side of her neck and up again, cradling her jaw.  “I do not see any reason for you to resist that urge if indeed you have it.”

Fenris is warm, so warm—his palm is warm against her skin, his breath is warm against her lips, and as Amelle reaches out to slide her hands up his chest, fingers dragging lazily over the toggle clasps of his jerkin, heat radiates through the leather as well. She finds his neck, hands continuing their slow trip upward until her fingertips find his face, but save for sliding her thumb across his lips, Amelle does not stop to read his features.  She cradles his face in her hands and leans forward, instinctively finding his mouth with hers.

The kiss is not slow and leisurely; on the contrary, the moment Amelle’s lips brush Fenris’, she loses her breath, and though she might’ve wanted something gentle at first, something sweet, when their mouths touch, the result is anything but.  

Their kiss is _hungry._    

The chocolate and ginger still cling to her palate as Amelle parts her lips, and when Fenris deepens the kiss, the flavor of it likewise deepens and she presses closer, wrapping her arms around his neck.  Oh, but she has missed him, missed this, and when they shift against the couch, and sink deeper into the cushions, the taste of Fenris’ kiss turns; it is not desperation, not yet, but what’s fueling him is far more intense than mere hunger. 

There is nowhere else she’d rather be.  

“Tell me,” she gasps as he pulls her atop him to straddle his legs, battening his mouth upon her neck.   The sensation sends off a series of sparks in her brain and along her spine, down to her fingertips and toes, she’s certain, and thought is lost for the moment.  Her dress is twisted up around her thighs and she doesn’t care—the only things that matter are right here:  Fenris, this couch, and a bar of Orlesian chocolate.  Then his hand skims her calf, slides beneath her skirt and behind the sudden pulse of need, she remembers— “Tell me the door’s closed.”

A brief pause, punctuated only by Fenris’ ragged breathing.  “It… is not.”

“Fenris.  That is not what I told you to tell me.”

He chuckles then, and it is a sound every bit as good as the richest, darkest chocolate Orlais can craft.  Heat unfurls in her belly; it has been at least a month since they have made love and every single day of it thrums in her pulse.  She dips her head and breathes in the scent of him, her nose tracing the line of his collar before she sneaks the tip of her tongue out and licks a gentle path up to his jaw line.

There are no words for how satisfying it is when he shudders and swears.

From his jaw, her lips wander further before finding Fenris’ earlobe. “Take me upstairs,” she breathes.  

His sharp intake of breath could be because of what she’s doing to his ear, or it could be because of her request itself.  “Take you…”

“Take me upstairs,” she repeats with a kiss.  “Please.”  His silence communicates his hesitation as loudly as any clarion call and Amelle allows herself a soft breath of laughter.  “Fenris.  I know perfectly well I can find my own way up to my room.  However, I’d like to get up there before we both die of old age.  In the interest of expediency, _please_ take me up to my bed.”

His laugh is soft and short, tinged with something akin to self-deprecation.  “Very well.”  

“Don’t forget the chocolate.”

“You have plans for it?”

“I have plans for _you._ ”

She’s already straddling him, and when Fenris stands, she wraps her legs around his waist and her arms around his neck; he’s holding her, supporting her, and doing a terrible job of not tripping on one of the stairs when she begins kissing the side of his neck.

“Careful,” she murmurs against him, the very tip of her tongue darting out to taste the salt on his skin.  “If you fall, we might have to finish this right here.“  Her lips brush his earlobe.  “On the stairs.”

“Hawke,” he says, and his voice is strained, his arms are tense as they hold her, and she knows there is more than a slight chance that they very well could succumb to their passion on the stairs.  At this point, Amelle’s not picky.  

“Probably better if we don’t,” she says against his ear, letting her breath tickle, her lips brush against the skin.  “Definitely better if we make it up there.”  Less of a chance Sandal will stumble upon them, for one.  Amelle doesn’t give voice to that thought, though; the proper mood’s been difficult enough to cultivate.  She doesn’t want to kill it outright _now._   “Take me to bed, Fenris.”

He grits out a curse in Arcanum and somehow manages to take the remaining stairs two at a time before reaching the second floor.  Fenris closes the distance to her bedroom in no time at all, and soon the door’s heavy slam echoes through the room.  Then he’s releasing her, slowly—one leg comes down, and then the other, and only once Fenris is certain Amelle is steady on her feet does he pull her into his arms, slanting his mouth over hers in a kiss that sweeps her right off those feet again.  Fenris’ mouth is hot, demanding on hers; his hands are on her face, thumbs sweeping slowly along her cheekbones, her closed eyelids—she can do nothing but clutch at his jerkin and pull him closer— _closer_.  Nothing will satisfy her at this point but skin against skin.

Amelle gently catches Fenris’ lower lip between her teeth as her fingers seek out the jerkin’s toggle clasps.  She frees each one slowly, greedily drinking in the feel of warm skin beneath leather as the tunic falls open.  Fenris shivers under her touch, and she grazes his lip with her teeth again before deepening the kiss anew.  She pushes the garment free, and though Fenris hisses a swear to do it, he stops touching her long enough to shed the jerkin to the floor, where it falls with a whisper of sound.

Though he has been by her side almost constantly since Amelle lost her sight, she has missed Fenris, missed _this_ —his mouth at her neck, her hands at his chest, moving up to grip his shoulders, down to pull at his waist.  He, likewise, is pulling at her dress, tugging impatiently at laces and buttons until the whole thing comes up over her head and is tossed to the floor.

Her breasts press against the solid warmth of his chest and Amelle gasps, legs trembling even as she reaches down between them.  Fenris presses against her hand before pressing his mouth against her neck again—this time it’s his turn to bite, which he does, in a deliciously slow path along to her shoulder.

It is, she realizes, the first time since her accident that Fenris hasn’t been perfectly gentle with her.  His impatience shines through with the taste of every biting kiss, in the ragged tenor of every breathed curse.  It only ratchets her own desire higher; she cannot get her fill of touching him, feeling muscles and the thickened lines of scar tissue, old and older, pass under her fingers.  She bows her head and presses a kiss to his shoulders, to his chest, her tongue darting out to taste the salt on his skin.  One hand tightens on her back while the other slides into her hair, long fingers parting the short strands; his thumb rubs against her neck and the wave of sensation is such that she gasps and shudders hard.

This is what Fenris’ touch reduces her to.  It burns through and brushes aside her worries, her fears—every tiny preoccupation—until she is bare to him, clothed or not.

Amelle’s fingers drift downward until they catch on the leather ridge of Fenris’ belt. Complicated on the best of days, now she finds she has no choice but to take her time with it—impatience be damned, she cannot rush or hurry,  feeling for the intricate path of leather.  She has no choice but to take her time regardless of her heart pounding against her ribs, regardless of her quickened breath—every puff of air she exhales comes back off Fenris’ skin to caress her lips, and she would swear it carries with it the taste of him.

To his credit, Fenris doesn’t help her with his belt. But when she finally pulls it free, when her fingers slip beneath the waistband of his pants, his sharp inhale is so sudden that Amelle draws breath to ask if she’s hurt him.  But before she can give voice to her concern, _something_ passes beneath her fingers, shoots like fire up her arms, across her skin and into her—for the barest moment she is certain the sensation is rippling through her blood and into her head.  Then, impossibly, for the tiniest fraction of time—no more than seconds—her vision goes from black to red, nothing so much like a bright sun pressing down upon closed eyelids.

She stops and gasps, but as quickly as it came on, the sensation fades.

“What is it?” Fenris asks, alarm creeping into the outer edges of his tone.

The words come out in a gasp; she can manage nothing more than that.  “Your markings—“

“Yes?”

“I… felt them.”  Can still feel them, in fact—the echo of lyrium dances across her skin as it fades, tingling like tiny threads of accidentally conjured lightning.

“Are you—did it—was it… unpleasant?”  

She sends him a crooked smile as her fingers stroke his waist. “Quite the contrary.”

“I am pleased to hear it.”

His trousers are soon a memory, tossed aside.  But the memory of lyrium light turning her vision red does not dim so easily.

They make it, somehow, to the bed, falling as one, but Fenris twists them so he lands upon his back and Amelle atop him.  He goes still a moment, but before Amelle can ask, the stillness is broken by rustling paper and a dull, by now recognizable crack.

Fenris presses another piece of chocolate gently against her lips, murmuring, “I believe you said you had plans.”

Carefully, Amelle reaches up and takes the tiny square between her fingertips.  “I believe I said I had plans for you.”

His low chuckle sends a thrill across her skin.  “Consider me at your disposal.”

“Take it.”

There’s only a breath of hesitation before Fenris’ lips brush the pads of her fingers.  A hesitation followed by a deep, probing kiss, tinged with chocolate and ginger.  Want thrums hard through her body, unfurling in her belly and pulsing downward, and as Amelle kisses him, fairly drowning in the taste and heat of the kiss, she reaches down between them, the pads of her fingers trailing across his skin until they brush his length where he’s pressing against her.

Fenris’ gasp, his breathed curse, the way he presses against her when she touches him—Maker, all she wants is—

Then he breathes her name—not “Hawke,” but _her name_ —when she wraps her fingers loosely around him, stroking him, touching him, drinking in every response, audible and otherwise.

It is the sensation of Fenris trailing his tongue slowly—so very impossibly _slowly_ —down the side of her neck that does Amelle in, and she does not need her sight for this, does not need to see him, she only needs to feel him against her and then between her legs—then she moves, body arching, legs parting, and he’s there, _in her._  

Yes.  _Yes._  

Amelle has missed this.  Her familiar world has been made unfamiliar, plunged into darkness only seen with her fingertips, only sensed in sounds and smells and touches and tastes.  Everything common had been made foreign, everything comfortable made distant.  She has been adrift these weeks, forced to relearn her world, slowly.

But with Fenris under her, against her, inside her—Amelle does not need her sight.  She knows him whether she can see him or not.  She does not need her eyes to know how he likes to be touched, and she doesn’t need to see to know where her kisses will make him groan and shudder.

She pushes up to her knees, leaning back, _feeling_ him as she rocks her hips.  Amelle does not need to see to know Fenris’ body, to know his breath catches when she rolls her hips against him.  And when he touches her, when his rough, calloused fingers coast up her thighs, her hips, her waist to drag with agonizing slowness along the underside of her breasts, Amelle knows Fenris is seeing her how only he can—how only he ever will.

Another piece of chocolate at her lips—she accepts it, pausing to let her tongue glide across the tips of his fingers, savoring the salt of his skin and the almost-bitterness of chocolate melting upon her tongue as Fenris shifts—she moans as he moves inside her—to close his mouth over one nipple.  Amelle’s groan roughens into a cry as she arches against him, rocking harder.

She has missed him—missed _this._

They move together until something quickens in Amelle’s blood, her skin suddenly too hot and too cold at turns, too tight, too—

She moves faster, and beneath her Fenris breathes her name like a benediction.  She hears it in his throat, the way his lips press together on the _M_ and the way his tongue lingers over the _L,_ and, oh, she  wants him to say her name like that for the rest of her days, wants _him_ for the rest of her days.

They move together—she is above and then beneath and then above again, their mouths sealed, kisses tasting of chocolate and ginger and other unnameable things, their teeth clicking in haste until the pounding in Amelle’s blood builds and builds and _builds_ until it breaks, until she cries out against his mouth as her body tightens and sensation, building and cresting for so long, finally breaks like a wave over a sea wall.  She moves, taking Fenris deeper and deeper—his arms tighten around her, his face pressed against her neck as he tenses—and Amelle cries out again and again until the haze in her mind begins to clear, and the sensations chasing across her skin and through her blood slow to a sated trickle.

It’s with an unsteady sigh Amelle sinks against Fenris’ body, their heated skin cooling with every trembling breath.  She turns her head sideways, resting it upon his chest.

“Well,” she manages.  It’s all she can manage.

Fenris’ hand travels a leisurely path up her spine, coming to rest in her hair.  “Yes?”

“That was…”  Amelle trails off, listening to the _thud-thump, thud-thump, thud-thump_ of his heart, slowing down to something like a normal pace.

“It was.”

“That was… a most excellent gift.”

“Thank you.”

“Is there any left?” she asks. His breath of laughter is loud in her ear, drowning out his heartbeat for a moment.

“There is.”

Amelle turns her head, pressing a kiss to the spot where she’d been listening. 

 _“Good._ ”


	7. Sight

“Oh, that’s very good, lethalin!” Merrill cries from the corner of the room.

A bead of sweat is trickling down her temple, and Amelle leans on her staff as she swipes at her forehead with her sleeve.  “Shall we try again?”

“Once more.  You’re looking a bit pale.”  At Amelle’s nod, she feels rather than hears Merrill move about the room.  “All right, count!”

The exercise is something like an advanced version of hide and seek.  The goal, in theory, is to aid Amelle’s spatial awareness and help her—if necessary—utilize her mana to get her bearings.  It’s not the sort of trick she expects to make use of frequently, but it’s an important one to cultivate if she ever hopes to navigate Kirkwall by herself someday.  And she does.

The game, for lack of a better word, involves Amelle counting to ten while Merrill finds somewhere in the library to stand silent and still.  Then Amelle conjures very mild, but very precise bursts of energy, drawing on her mana only slightly differently than she would for a repulsion glyph.  Amelle’s idea is that while such a spell would push an opponent away from her, she might be able to twist her mana—and, consequently the spell—changing it enough that it bounces back to her if it came in contact with, for instance, an adversary.  Or Merrill.  Or anyone.

The process is very new, and very different from her healing magic, which makes it more difficult, and, aside from extensive expenditures of healing magic, Amelle hasn’t spent this kind of mana in upwards of six weeks. But so far she’s located Merrill eight out of twelve times.  It feels _good_ to be using her magic like this.  It feels good to be up and around with a staff in her hand.  It feels _excellent_ not to feel quite so helpless.

Amelle counts to ten, slowly, taking care not to listen too closely to Merrill’s movements.  That defeats the purpose of using her magic as a means to “see,” and Amelle’s in no mood to make this easier on herself.  Once she finishes counting, she adjusts her grip on the staff, fingers flexing as she draws in a deep breath until her mana surges and builds, filling her lungs, her blood, her brain until the energy buzzes and tingles beneath her skin.  It isn’t enough that the mana’s there, ready to be used—no, letting the spell loose right now would be akin to swatting a mosquito with a mace.  It’s delicate work she’s trying to do.  The spell helps focus her power, helps her mold and shape and form the energy until it’s _right_.  When that moment comes, it’s like a key turning; the door is finally unlocked—she just has to turn the knob.

Her left hand outstretched, Amelle turns slowly as she looses tiny bursts of magic.  The spell is similar enough to a repulsion glyph in that it reacts only to living things—not chairs or tables. Of the four times Amelle was unable to locate Merrill, three times she’d managed to find Griffon instead.  

Unfortunately, it’s a slow, draining process.  Amelle has to hold the mana in check, releasing it only a little at a time.  Perhaps eventually she’ll be able to perform the spell more quickly, but right now she’s concentrating on not only the controlled releases, but also whether or not her magic, having “found” Merrill, will return to her.

She wonders how much of a drain on her abilities it would be to develop a seeking spell, something more specific, drawn to a living, breathing person.  Then again, if one were to believe conventional wisdom, an apostate ought not to have the skill or ability to craft such a spell.

It’s a good thing Amelle’s never been a particular fan of conventional wisdom.

Just then, a pulse of energy buzzes against her palm, tickling like a hummingbird’s wings.  She thinks for a moment, trying to recall which way she’s facing.  Though it feels like cheating by now, she listens for the fire in the grate—the gentle crackling and the comforting brush of warmth is to her left, and she takes a cautious step forward, then sends out another burst of magic.

Again, it comes back to her.  She takes another step, sends out another burst.  When nothing happens, she alters the direction of the pulse just a fraction and sends another out.  This one returns to her as well.  Another step and the fireplace is now behind and to her left; if she turns her head, the warmth touches her cheek.  Taking a deep, centering breath, Amelle lets out another wave of magic, but  she’s growing tired; they’ve been at this for most of the afternoon and her clothes and hair are damp with sweat.

_Just a little bit more.  Just a little…_

When the energy is released, it’s not as controlled as the other bursts, but it comes back all the same and Amelle takes another step.  It’s strange—the angle is all wrong and yet… and _yet…_

“Maker’s blood, Merrill, are you standing behind the bloody door?”

The elf laughs and swings the library door shut.  “I’d wondered if you were going to figure that out.”

“Yes, well, I think that’s a fair note to end on for today,” Amelle replies, torn between a scowl, because that had been _difficult_ —sneaky elf—and laughter because, difficulty aside, she’d still managed it.  She turns and uses the tip of the staff to find her way back to the couch.  Navigating the house is easier now, and while Amelle still bumps into the furniture, it happens less and less frequently.  She drops onto the couch and sets the staff on the floor by her feet, then sinks against the cushions, head tilted back.

“It worked rather well, I thought,” Merrill says, perching at the other end of the couch.

“I think I’m surprised it worked at all.”

“Really?”

At Amelle’s nod, Merrill lets out a soft, thoughtful hum.  There’s the hint of a question to it, and Amelle tilts her head toward Merrill.  “Yes?”

“I only… it’s only that I think it’s strange, is all.”  Amelle has become so used to _listening_ that she catches a peculiar note in Merrill’s voice, and the shift of fabric that sounds distinctly as if she’s plucking at the tassels on one of the couch cushions. “What… made you think the spell might not work?”

Shrugging one shoulder, Amelle answers, “Because I’m not entirely convinced it _should_ have worked.  All of the books on the different schools of—”

“Ahh.”  The plucking stops.  “Now I see.”

“I’m glad you do,” Amelle replies.  “Care to let me in on your epiphany?”

“Books, written by mages—but what mage can know everything about magic?  And were any of them _you?_ ”

“Obviously not,” Amelle replies with a laugh.

“Nobody but you knows what you need your magic to do.  You just made it do what you needed.”

“You make it sound so _simple._ ”  The magic she’s been wielding this afternoon has been anything but simple.

“Sometimes these things are.  It’s we who make them more difficult than they need to be.”

###

It’s the sound of her name being called that jerks Amelle awake.  Her back, neck, and shoulders ache—the couch in the library is fine for short naps, but less than ideal for longer rests—and she turns her head, listening hard, wondering if maybe she’d dreamt it.  The hearth is silent and cold, which means the fire had long since burnt down—so it’s late, probably hours since she curled up under a blanket, promising herself she’d only rest her eyes until Fenris came back.  He’d gone with Aveline, Sebastian, and Varric to look into a possible cult worshipping desire demons; Amelle had wanted Anders go along, but there’d been no sign of the mage in his clinic, and Aveline’s guardsmen had indicated already that the cult—if that’s indeed what it was—was getting bolder in its actions, attacking in the shadow of night, and Fenris… had insisted.

_“Hawke!”_

Sebastian’s voice, and it’s thick with alarm.  Definitely not a dream, then.  Amelle reaches around desperately for her walking stick, but it must’ve rolled beneath the couch or is otherwise out of reach, because her quickly searching hands don’t close around the slender piece of wood.  She whistles for Griffon, who bumps her leg when he reaches her side.  No time to fuss with straps and harnesses now—she takes hold of the collar and stands.

“Let’s find Sebastian,” she whispers urgently, and Griffon tows her forward without so much as an agreeable woof.  But as they reach the library door, as Amelle’s fingers close around the handle, it jerks open.

“She’s here!”  Aveline’s voice, hoarse and distressed but why hasn’t she heard— “Bring him in here, Sebastian.  Varric, lights.”

Sebastian.  Aveline.  Varric.  There is one name she hasn’t heard.  One _voice_ she hasn’t heard.  Her grip on Griffon’s collar tightens, the leather biting into her hand as she takes an instinctive step backward.

“What is it,” she grinds out.  “What’s—”

“Fenris,” Aveline answers brusquely as booted feet pound with struggling, uneven steps into the room.  Amelle turns to follow the sound, her heart pounding harder with every second somebody _doesn’t_ tell her what in the bloody blighted Void happened.  “There,” Aveline says, “set him on the—no, not the couch.  Careful, Sebastian.  Varric, toss me that blanket on the chair—there.”  Sounds, so many sounds follow, but none of them so horrible as the low thud of a body being placed upon the floor.  

In that moment, Amelle has had quite enough of darkness and hints and cues she wouldn’t need if she had her thrice-damned _sight_.  

“What,” she says again, her patience spun down to nothing, _“happened?_ ”

“Broody got himself flanked,” Varric says.

“By a desire demon,” Sebastian adds pointedly.  His voice comes from the floor, and the rasp of leather straps being pulled through buckles grates across her nerves.  

Aveline’s voice likewise comes from the floor.  “He turned to deal with the demon and didn’t see that bloody rogue slink in behind him.”  A grunt, followed by what is undoubtedly Fenris’ chestplate coming away, fill the silence.  “Poisoned daggers.”

Letting go of Griffon’s collar, Amelle carefully lowers herself to her knees and feels her way forward.  The chill from the floor pushes up even through the thick rug, and when Amelle’s fingers brush over Fenris’ gauntlets, she barely manages to suppress her shiver at the cold metal.  “Why didn’t you take him to Anders?” Amelle asks, not sure she wants to hear the answer.

It’s Sebastian who answers, his words broken up with pauses as he struggles with some other aspect of Fenris’ armor.  “I ran ahead to tell him Varric and Aveline were bringing Fenris to the clinic, but the lantern was doused and the doors locked.”

Varric’s voice moves across the room—lighting lanterns, no doubt.  “So we brought him here.”

“Varric, wake Orana.  We need a basin of water—don’t waste time heating it—and some clean rags. Lots of clean rags.  Where’s he injured?” she asks, hands outstretched.  Someone else’s hands—Sebastian’s, she suspects—they are not wrapped in gauntlets like Aveline’s, and Varric’s heavy footsteps are already on their way out of the room—guide Amelle to the wounds.  _Andraste’s teeth,_ she thinks viciously, setting her jaw. _Wounds_ , _plural.  Damn it, Fenris_.

“Most of them just below his ribs on the right side,” Sebastian explains, and though his tone is patient, she can hear that patience wearing away as surely as her own is.  “One blade got him in the back.”

“How many strikes?” she asks, her fingertips gently—so, so very gently—tracing the spot where the skin is split, where blood, sticky and hot, slicks her questing fingers.

“Four,” Aveline answers, “before Sebastian put an arrow through his throat.”

“And three of them,” Sebastian adds darkly, “came while the arrow was in flight.”

“Still, pretty fast,” Aveline murmurs.

“Not fast enough,” replies Sebastian darkly.

While they’re talking, Amelle keeps running her fingers deftly over the wounds; the bleeding is slow but steady, but Fenris’s skin is feverish, his breathing is labored and his pulse is weaker, threadier than she’d like.  Poisoned wounds—she _hates_ poisoned wounds; there’s nothing straightforward about them.  Poison can just as easily make a wound bleed faster as slower—she has seen poisons designed to make a victim bleed out and she has seen poisons that clot the blood in the veins.  She doesn’t know which this is.

She must heal both the physical damage—Amelle’s worried that gash in his back may have nicked a kidney—and purge the poison. 

 _Easier said than done,_ she thinks grimly, but she places her hands, fingers spread, over the stab wounds and counts silently—one at the outer edge of her left palm, one against her left thumb, one at the tip of her right index finger, one by the heel of her right hand—and takes a breath, pushing forward a stream of healing energy, sending it out, out, out, in hotcold tendrils, focusing them on sliced skin, torn flesh, and damaged organs, and then breathing in and pushing that energy out in another wave, and then another, seeking out the poison in his blood, the corruption that is forcing him to struggle for every breath.

But as her magic burns away one shadow of poison, another extends, widens, darkens the blood with more corruption; as flesh from one tear mends, others deepen.  Not only does the poison remain, Amelle realizes with a sharp bolt of adrenaline, but Fenris’ wounds… aren’t healing. _Won’t_ heal.

Another, deeper breath as she calls on her mana and taps even more deeply into the Fade.  Her spirit’s presence is there, a phantom, psychic touch that sinks down into her hands, turning them both hotter and colder—burning ice or a freezing flame—sending out pulse after pulse of light until it senses the dark shadow in his blood.  Though Amelle cannot see it—could never see this part of her magic at work—it is a different kind of sight telling her there is deathroot toxin in his blood, deathroot and a host of other, nastier things, all of them in doses too small for her to identify easily, but she doesn’t have to.  Whatever has poisoned Fenris, it’s bad and it’s fighting her.  Amelle grinds her teeth, breathing deeper, pulling at her mana, twisting it and shaping before releasing it with her breath, sending it out into Fenris until Amelle’s blood pounds in her ears and sweat trails down her neck, sliding down her temple, beading on her upper lip.  

Varric’s booted steps return as Amelle pulls back, wiping her damp forehead with one sleeve.  What feels like hours has been only minutes—not a good sign.

“Aveline,” she says, wiping bloody hands upon her skirt until someone—Orana, probably—presses a damp rag into her hands.  Instead of wiping her hands with it, she presses the rag against Fenris’ skin, remembering where the gashes had bled against her hands.  “Go upstairs—there’s a small wooden chest under my bed.”  The wounds themselves would under normal circumstances be simple; the poisoning has rendered those circumstances less than ordinary.  She needs her cache of lyrium potion.  “Bring it down, please.”

“On it, Hawke.”

“Sebastian, press some cloths against Fenris’ wounds.  Keep pressure on them—even while I’m healing.”  His grunt is assent enough and Amelle sits back on her heels, hands curled into fists and pressed hard against her thighs as she thinks—and because this is Fenris and because his skin is hot to the touch and his breathing is labored and his wounds _won’t bloody heal,_ it is difficult to think.  If Sebastian can stem the bleeding, that will buy her time.  Lyrium potion—where in the Void is Aveline?—will definitely help, it it _has_ to help, there’s no choice but—

So occupied is she with her thoughts, Amelle doesn’t hear Aveline’s rushing, clanking footsteps, doesn’t realize her friend is back until there comes the thud of a wooden chest followed by the soft tinkling of bottles inside.  Running one hand across the front, she releases the latch and lifts the lid.  She had, at last count, twelve bottles of potion. Hopefully she won’t need all twelve to get this healed.  

Carefully but quickly, Amelle pulls a bottle free from where it’s nestled in straw, twisting the cork off with a pop and downing its contents in a few swallows.  If there’s anything fouler tasting than lyrium potion, Amelle doesn’t know what it could be, all bitter almonds and burnt fennel scorching a path down her throat.  The taste, though, doesn’t matter; it heightens her mana, makes it surge in her veins, pulsing bright as sunlight she can feel even if she can’t see.  Again she puts her hands on Fenris and again she breathes in, calling on her magic, twisting it into shape before sending it out past her fingers with a long, slow exhale.

The lyrium helps, as she knew it would, allowing her to act more quickly than the poison, though not by much.  Minutes had only _felt_ like hours before; now they stretch slowly into hours.  One bottle becomes two, two becomes three and four and soon half her store is gone before her healing magic even begins to make any change in Fenris’ condition.  She is soaked through with sweat and her back and knees ache, but the shadow in his blood moves more sluggishly, slow enough for her to overtake.  Gradually, the torn bits of him mend and do not fall open again.  

But despite all this, the poison lingers, keeps his breath coming in thin wheezes, keeps his heartbeat too irregular, too not-right.  Whatever coated those blades has had time enough to sink its claws into him and Amelle silently curses Anders; how many minutes were wasted because he wasn’t at his clinic?  How much of a difference might she have made if she’d been there where she could have drawn out the poison almost immediately?

Fenris’ pulse stutters.  

All of Amelle’s other trains of thought go suddenly silent.

Despite the magic she’s poured into him already, the poison lingers, deep within him.  Just a trace, perhaps, but a trace, it appears, is enough to make a difference.  

His heart struggles to beat, pumping out an irregular tattoo that turns Amelle’s blood cold.

Whatever she’s done so far, it isn’t enough; it won’t be enough.

 _No,_ she thinks. _Not like this._

She does not want to be left alone in the dark.

After downing two more bottles of lyrium, one directly after another, Amelle takes a breath so deep her lungs _hurt_ , pulling hard at her mana, at all the power the Fade has to offer, and pushing it out with more force than finesse; her magic burns brighter and hotter and colder until her fingertips are numb and tingling with pins and needles. An ache settles into her bones, one that eclipses her sore knees and stiff back; Amelle aches with magic itself, a strange sort of exertion that reminds her dimly of being out in the cold too long, too exposed to swirling frost and biting winds.  But she doesn’t care about this pain any more than she cares about her knees or her back.  She will rest and recover once Fenris is healed, once his system is free from the poison tainting it, then she will— 

The irregular, uneven beat of his pulse starts to slow.  

_Don’t you dare, Fenris.  Don’t you bloody dare._

There’s no warning when it comes—a sudden, sharp burst of energy, like a bolt of lightning or the Fade and all its spirits made suddenly manifest, alights at the top of Amelle’s spine and shudders down her arms, like every spell she ever learned and a few she never knew existed. She cannot know whether her Fade spirit is responsible for the change, or if this is somehow her doing, but such distinctions hardly matter while the fine hairs upon her neck are standing on end and her skin is raised in gooseflesh and every breath she takes is fire and frost.  She gasps at the sensation of so much power, so much energy, so much—Maker, it’s almost too much pushing through her, but the poison… the poison’s hold on Fenris is weakening, and the shadows it wove through his blood are suddenly cast into  light.  Her magic twines itself around the poison, burning it away like a dry leaf eaten by flame, crumbling not even to ash but simply to nothing _._ Without such corruption hindering it, Fenris’ flesh knits itself back together again—indeed, it cannot remain damaged in the wake of such energy.  Her magic is the ocean, every crashing wave smoothing out a ragged shore.  

Then the burst of magic fades, leaving Amelle weak and trembling, but beneath her hands, Fenris breathes clear, even breaths—a counterpoint to Amelle’s own ragged panting.  His heartbeat steadies while Amelle’s gallops in her veins.  In fact, she’s still trembling, still trying to catch her breath and slow her heartbeat when Fenris wakes with a jerk and a gasp, lyrium markings flashing to sudden life.  And Amelle—still so very connected to the Fade, her hands still upon him, lyrium potion still buzzing in her veins, her mana still open and exposed— _feels_ the lyrium upon his skin like so much lightning traveling up her arms, into her body, her brain, into every crevice of her, pulsing and burning and so very, very _bright—_

Bright?  No, that can’t be.  

But with the surging lyrium passing along her spell-raw senses, Amelle’s vision goes from black to red.  Red like sunlight against closed lids.  Red like the last time his markings flared so strongly beneath her touch.  Her magic had been active then, too, though less so—pent-up mana escaping from her fingertips.  But this time she feels the energy Fenris’ markings unleash as surely as any touch.  Then something… _prickles_ at the back of her eyes, something… she cannot explain it, but she has felt nothing in her eyes for so long, the fact she feels anything there at all is almost more than she can believe.  

Amelle wants to examine this, explore it, understand what it means, but the sensation lasts no longer than a heartbeat.  Then red darkens once again to black, and the lightning dancing across her skin subsides to the barest tingle.  Whatever happened, whatever it meant, it doesn’t matter; Fenris is awake.  He is awake and healed and tonight’s nightmare is over.

The quality of the silence hovering over the room changes from tense to relieved, as if they all have expelled a relieved breath.  Amelle slides from her knees down to rest on one hip, bloody hands clasped together so no one can see how badly they’re shaking.  She hates close calls, and that one was too, too close.

“…Hawke?” Fenris croaks.

Varric puts voice to Amelle’s thoughts.  “You had a close one, Broody.  Hawke patched you up.”

Too close.

“Crisis averted, everybody,” she says, attempting to smooth the tremor from her voice, forcing it to lightness when _light_ is the last thing she feels.  “The bloodstains, wherever they are, will keep till the morning.”

“Mistress.”  Orana’s voice comes from behind Amelle and to the left, just behind Sebastian.  “You’re covered in—shall I draw a bath?”

Covered in blood.  She doesn’t doubt it.  But the hour is late and Amelle doubts Varric’s wake-up was a gentle one so she shakes her head.  “I don’t think—”

“Mistress,” the maid cuts in—and that’s odd in itself.  “I insist.  It’s no trouble.  Sandal will help.”

Amelle can’t help but wonder just how bad off she looks.  “All right,” she says, wearily.  Then, pushes slowly to her feet.  Her knees wobble, but then a hand is on her arm and someone, she is too tired to determine who, is pressing her stick into her hand.  “As I was saying, crisis averted.  Sebastian, if you’ll please help Fenris upstairs—

The creak of leather is as effective an interruption as if Fenris had spoken outright.  “I do not require assis—“

“Fenris,” she says, and even Amelle can hear the strain in her voice. “Don’t argue.  Not about this.  Please.”  She wants to say, _Save the arguments for the nights I’m not covered in your blood and wondering how close I came to hearing your heart beat for the last time._   Something in her tone—perhaps every thought she isn’t giving voice to—makes Fenris subside and accept Sebastian’s help when he offers it.

It’s not the closest call they’ve had, not by a long shot, but tonight has left Amelle rattled and she doesn’t want to let her burgeoning frustration take hold, but it is.  _If only I’d been there,_ the thought comes, over and over again— _this wouldn’t have happened._ Whether it is true or not, accurate or not, it feels true, and that is enough for the moment.

One by one, her compatriots leave, promising to check by in the morning. When the door finally closes for the last time that night, Amelle is ready for a bath and a decades-long sleep.  She doesn’t have to see to know her grip on her walking stick is white-knuckled.  

Orana’s soft step comes into the foyer.  “Mistress, your bath is drawn.”

“Thank you,” she says on an exhale, bowing her head.  She turns slowly, her cane tapping a path to the stairs; she gets along surprisingly well with it now.  “You… didn’t bother heating the water, did you?”

“No, Mistress.“

“Good.”  Despite the mana she’s expended tonight, she’d rather heat her own water.  She can still do some things for herself, after all.

Amelle’s thoughts make her trek up the stairs a slow one.

Her bath is indeed stone cold, but Orana’s added lavender to it—as unsubtle a hint as Amelle can expect from the maid—that wafts upward when she plunges her hands into the water, calling upon enough mana to turn the water hot as she can stand it.  As she does, scented steam fills the room and she breathes it in, willing it to take the edge off her nerves, still frayed and raw after the night’s events.

Distantly, it occurs to Amelle she ought to feel pleased with herself.  She ought to feel good about what’s she’s done tonight; she’s proven to herself she’s still as she ever was—she is still a spirit healer, sight or no sight, and tonight she pulled the man she loves away from the brink of death.

But she doesn’t feel good.  She doesn’t feel _accomplished._   What she feels are equal parts fear, frustration, and anger.  She could have lost Fenris tonight.  Came perilously close to it, in fact—closer than she ever wants to come again.  She doesn’t want to be left alone in the dark; Amelle never realized until tonight just how very potent that fear is.

_“Whatever it is you wish to do, whatever it is you wish of me to do, it will be done. But do not think for a moment I will let you send me away.”_

All well and good he doesn’t want her sending him away, but what about tonight, when he very nearly left anyway?  And it wouldn’t have happened, the poison wouldn’t have had a chance to sink in as deeply as it had, _if she’d been there_.  So instead of feeling as if she’s managed something monumental despite her impairment, helplessness and uselessness weight her down.  She is _tired_ of this, tired of every little battle to relearn her life.  For that matter, Amelle is tired of this new life—or pale attempt at one—she’s carved out for herself.  She is sick unto death of her situation, and sick unto death of wallowing over it.  

She is also _furious_ with Anders for not being where he’s meant to be. Perhaps it’s unreasonable of her to be so angry, but Amelle is not inclined to feel reasonable just now. 

The heat of the water against her skin is what finally pushes Amelle out of her thoughts.  Straightening, she flicks excess water from her fingertips and sheds her clothes before carefully feeling her way into the tub, exhaling in a hiss as she lowers her body into the scalding water.  A headache pounds at the back of her head, but she is too tired to care.  It will go away on its own; they always do.

 _Work beyond your current limitations,_ her spirit had told her.  There was a time Amelle thought she understood what that meant—learning her life all over again, learning to navigate these changes, learning to _be_ despite all she no longer was.  Now she isn’t so sure.  She’d thought—hoped—perhaps the words had been a riddle, the answer to which was a cure to her blindness.  She’d thought if she just tried hard enough, if she just worked and persevered… then perhaps all would yet be well.

But tonight she could have lost Fenris.  He is a loss she is unwilling to incur.

Drawing in a breath sharp enough to be a sob, Amelle slides under the water, raking her fingers through her hair as it floats like seaweed in her bathwater.  Beneath the water’s surface, against the beating of her heart in her ears, Despair whispers to her.

 _You will lose them all,_ it tells her in a voice choked with tears.  _They’ll all leave you, one way or another.  They’ll all leave you in the dark.  You’ll be all alone, forever._

The fingers raking through her hair tighten, pulling hard at the strands as Amelle pushes back against the whispers slinking through her mind.  Sitting up, she breaks the surface of the water with a gasp, fingers still twisted in her hair, still pulling, as if the pressure at her scalp will keep the demons at bay.

Then again, it might.  She’s never tried that particular approach before.

She sits there, hands clenched in her hair, knees pulled up to her chest until she has pushed back at the presence whispering in her head.  Fear, as Amelle well knows, can be an ally—fear has pushed her to action, has saved her life more than once.  Fear is a natural warning system, and she likely would have died countless times over now without it.  But this… is different.  This is fear tempered with anger, or anger tempered with fear; it is high-pitched and desperate and leaves Amelle wanting nothing more than to lash out at someone, whether they deserve it or not.

The knock at the door startles her, water sloshing softly against the edge of the tub.

“Yes?” she calls out, her voice too high, too sharp to sound at all natural.

“Hawke,” comes Fenris’ voice.  “May I…” an awkward pause, and Amelle knows that once upon a time he wouldn’t have knocked, wouldn’t have needed to.  “May I come in?”

_No._

She swallows the word just as she swallows her sigh, and says, “Yes.”

The door opens and closes again, Fenris’ step nearly silent on the floor.  “Hawke,” he says slowly.  “Are you… well?”

“No, I am not,” she replies.  The room’s acoustics only amplify the edge in her voice and it is a trial to keep from giving in to the urge to wince at the sound of her own voice.

Still, Fenris moves closer.  A chair scrapes across  the floor.  Sitting, then.

“You ought to be resting, Fenris,” she tells him, rubbing her fingertips against her forehead, taking no pains whatsoever to hide the annoyance in her tone.  “What is it?”

It’s a stung silence that follows, and Amelle’s face flushes with a sudden wash of shame.  Fenris does not deserve this, does not deserve to be the target of her ire, her frustration, her _self._   But she doesn’t apologize.

With Fenris’ slow exhale, Amelle knows—she _knows_ he’s trying to keep his own temper in check. She wishes he wouldn’t; she’s spoiling for a fight, and Fenris isn’t going to give one to her, because she’s bloody _blind._

“I thought to check on you,” he replies, and oh, it stings to hear how guarded his tone has turned, how studiously neutral.  Beneath the water, Amelle’s hands curl into fists, her short nails biting hard into her palms.

“You ought to be resting,” she says again, the words ground out past a too-tight throat.

“I feel well enough.”

Her throat tightens further, as if to stop the words entirely, but she pushes them out past her lips.  “You nearly died tonight.”  

“But I did not.”

She sits up, water sloshing in the tub, sluicing down her shoulders, dripping from her hair.  “Damn it, Fenris, you came _too close._ ”

His hand slaps hard against his own leg—oh, how she _wishes_ she could look him in the eye right now.  “Hawke—” he begins, but Amelle is having none of it.

“Do you remember what you said to me?  Do you?  You said, _do not think for a moment I will let you send me away._   This is why— _this_ is why, Fenris.  This is why I should have done exactly that.  Because it would be easier to endure, easier to survive than… than almost _losing_ you.”  There are tears in her eyes and her lip is trembling, but she grits her teeth and forces the words out anyway.  “This whole—this whole time I’ve been fooling myself, thinking I’ve been _adjusting._   I haven’t been.  I’m just as… as lost and pathetic as I was the moment I woke up with those bloody bandages on my eyes.”

“That is not true,” he snaps, “and you know it.”

But she only shakes her head, clenching her fists until her fingers ache.  “I thought… I thought I was working beyond my limitations, but what does that mean?  What does it amount to, really?  Climbing the stairs on my own?  _Dressing_ myself?  What sorts of victories are those?  What sort of life is that?”

“It is a life,” he says quietly—but this is not a peaceful quiet resonating through Fenris’ voice.  No, he is far from peaceful.  “You have—” 

But she does not let him finish.  Her shout drowns out Fenris’ voice and strains against her throat, coming out ragged.  _“You ought to have left me where I fell.”_ She says the words and, in that moment, _she means them._

A rush of air presages his voice, now so much closer to her.  Heat radiates off him and Amelle is nearly certain he’s leaning over the tub, hands braced against stone.  “Do not say that,” he growls.  “ _Never_ say that.”

“Isn’t it the truth?” she snaps.

“It is selfish,” he barks back, “and you are above such petty selfishness.”

He’s right, and for a moment she’s furious with him for that. This is nothing more than selfish self-pity and intellectually Amelle knows this, knows she worked through it once already.  

She hates that he’s right.  “Get out,” she grinds through gritted teeth.

His answer comes, slow and measured.  “I will not.”

Mana prickles uncomfortably beneath her skin; Amelle’s connection to the Fade is so very sore and raw, and she’s so _tired,_ but frustration will find the only outlet available, and it will make use of that outlet.  She clenches her fists more tightly, as if that might stop the tendrils of light she knows are escaping her fingertips right now.

 _“Get. Out._ ”

He’s leaning over her now, leaning closer, hands gripping her arms, fingers scything into her flesh.  “I will not.  Ask it, demand it—I do not care what words you chose.  I am staying.”

“ _Fenris_ —”

Lightning skims up her arms before she can say anymore, cutting her words off in a gasp; the mana in her veins, building and waiting for release, _surges_ the moment—and she knows this is what’s happened—Fenris’ tattoos awaken.

Her vision lightens from black to red.  Again.  The third time something like this has occurred.

The moment, tense with anger and thick with words best left unspoken, shifts sideways. Worry lives on the opposite side of their anger, like two sides of a coin.

“What’s happened?” Fenris asks, fingers loosening their bruising grip.  In truth, Amelle is too startled by the sensation to answer; her own feelings of frustration and anger dissipate into the ether—all she knows now, right now, is the feeling of lyrium tripping over her magic-spent nerves.  Of _something_ in her eyes.

Her expression must mirror her thoughts, though Amelle herself is not sure what those thoughts are.  Even as Fenris’ marks fade—and she knows they’re fading because the lightning across her skin subsides, and her vision darkens again—she isn’t sure _what_ she’s thinking, only that it’s madness.

“Hawke?” Fenris murmurs, fingers brushing gently across her forehead to her temple and down again until his thumb rubs back and forth across her cheek.  “Are you—what’s wrong?”

There’s no point denying it, so Amelle explains, willing the tremor from her voice, as clearly, as calmly as possible, what has happened with her vision.

“Three times, now,” she concludes.

The silence that follows is vast, even by Fenris’ standards.  “My… these markings have… affected you so?  You never said.”

“I wasn’t sure what it meant—if it meant anything.”

But maybe it had meant something.  It made sense, didn’t it?  The sensation occurred when her mana was active—but it had been at its strongest when healing magic flooded her veins.  And then had come Fenris’ lyrium, such a dose of it, amplifying her own abilities…

Amelle’s throat goes suddenly dry.

 _The worst that could happen_ , she tells herself, _the absolute worst is that it might not work_.  

Can she accept that?  

_Yes._

Anger forgotten, the fact she is in the _bath_ forgotten, Amelle bites down hard on her lower lip and reaches up to clasp Fenris’ hand, the backs of his fingers resting against her cheek.  “Can we try it again?  On purpose?  Just… just to see?”

Fenris’ fingers wind tightly around hers and squeeze; it is all the answer she requires.  Nodding once, Amelle draws in a deep breath, coaxing mana into her veins—on purpose, this time—and letting it shift into healing energy.  It’s been a long night and she’s tired; the energy pulsing from her hands is weak, but they must _try._  

They have nothing to lose, after all.  

A heartbeat of time passes before—yes, it’s happening again.  Again, lightning dances up her arms.  Again, her vision lightens to red—the most beautiful shade she’s ever seen.  Amelle breathes in again, reaching deeper now.  And again.  And again.

Wait.  _Wait._ There is something—she feels something, she—

Another breath.  More mana—she needs _more_.  Another breath, another and still another until she trembles with effort, sweat beading on her forehead.  It slides in a trickle down her temple and drips softly into the bathwater.

Amelle exhales, pulling psychic fingers away from the connection inside her, trying not to wince at how sore, how empty she feels.

It has been all for nothing.  Her vision is black again.  

Neither of them speaks as Fenris helps Amelle from the bath, rubs a towel gently across her skin, guides a nightdress over her head, and helps her into bed.

They say nothing as he crawls in behind her, wrapping his arms around her body and tucking her close.

They do not speak until Fenris’ voice, so close to her ear, murmurs softly:

“I will not leave you to this.  I give you my word.”

Amelle doesn’t reply—she only nods, because if she speaks, she will betray the fact her pillow is dampened with tears.

###

A week.  A week since their strained altercation, a week since the healing attempt that hadn’t worked but _should have_ , since Amelle decided it was time something changed, and she the one to change it.

Seven weeks she has been without sight.

Amelle wakes before Fenris now—and that’s a blessed bit of normalcy she quite enjoys. She keeps her stick by the bedside, always in the same place, always in easy reach, and in the mornings she quietly taps her way to the wardrobe and shrugs into her dressing gown, then makes her slow way downstairs in time for tea while Orana prepares breakfast.  Somewhere along the way this stopped feeling like an accomplishment and began feeling as perhaps it ought to have felt—routine.

Griffon pads beside her as she navigates the halls carefully to the kitchen, the end of her stick tapping softly against the stones.  Orana’s bustling about, singing a folk song about lost love; Amelle’s sure the maid hasn’t noticed her yet—Orana’s never sung in front of her before and it’s enough to make Amelle go still and listen a moment.  Orana has a pleasant voice—not the type that would pack an opera house in Val Royeaux, but sweet and soothing.  Exactly the sort of voice that should be singing in her kitchen.

Resting a hand on the doorframe, Amelle clears her throat and taps her stick a bit more loudly on the floor.  Sure enough, the singing stops.  

“Mistress, what are you doing awake?”

Amelle feels her way to one of the kitchen chairs and sits.  “I woke up and wasn’t tired anymore?”

She clucks her tongue and says, “It’s terribly early.”

“Still dark?” Amelle asks.  Orana, strangely, has moved away from using words like “dark” and “light” around her.

“The sun’s not quite up yet, no.  We’re about a half hour off from dawn, I should say.”

Amelle lets out a long breath.  She’s truly not tired and doesn’t particularly want to make her way back upstairs just to toss and turn and inevitably wake Fenris.  She’d rather let him sleep.  “Do you… mind if I keep you company, then?”

“Not at all, mistress.”

Some day, _some day_ she will convince Orana to call her by her name.  But today is not that day.  “Is there tea?”

“Not yet, I’m afraid.  I was just about to—”

“Let me make it?” she asks suddenly, and while the words may have started out as a joke when they formed in her brain and sprang to her lips, once she’d let them loose, Amelle realized that was something she in fact _did_ want to do.  Something she used to do frequently, in fact.

But Orana’s silence is telling.

“Please?” Amelle adds, then wiggles her fingers, letting faint sparks of harmless mana fly loose.  “I’ll stay far away from the stove.”

It takes a few seconds more of silence, but finally Orana sighs.  “All right.  Let me get the—”

“No.  Let me.  I—I know where everything’s supposed to be, Orana.  I haven’t made tea in more than a month, but somehow I doubt you completely rearranged the whole kitchen in the meantime.”

“Very well, mistress.  Let me fetch the teapot, though.  It’s on a high shelf, and the stepstool’s a bit wobbly.  Messere wouldn’t appreciate it if you took a spill on my watch.”  The fact that Orana still refers to Fenris as “messere” amuses Amelle almost as much as it discomfits Fenris.

In the end, Amelle needs a little help locating the blend of tea she’s looking for—it’s been pushed back too far on the shelf—and comes a little too close to burning herself when she pours the hot water from kettle to teapot, but she’s done it.  She has made a pot of tea, and she’s done it herself.  It is, she thinks as she cradles the teacup in her hands, possibly the sweetest brew she’s ever drunk.  She drinks it with the fresh morning buns that come out of the oven, hot and sticky with sugar and spices, and once the pot’s gone tepid, she heats it up again and Orana helps her takes a cup outside, Griffon at her heels, where Amelle sits on the little stone bench beneath the yew tree.  But the morning is chilly and the maid likes to fuss; Amelle’s out there only a few minutes before Orana brings out a thick blanket from one of the linen closets and drapes it over Amelle’s legs.

A few minutes more, and Amelle is thankful for Orana’s foresight, tucking the blanket around her.

As the sun rises, creeping upon Kirkwall, the city slowly comes awake around her.  Even after seven weeks, she has grown accustomed to piecing together sounds and smells and textures until they make a full picture.  The tea is hot and fragrant as a beam of early sunlight hits her face, warming her cheek.  Voices call to each other—merchants on their way to market, most likely—and beneath it all is the faintest echo of morningsong at the chantry.

Would she have cared about such a moment when she’d been able to see?  Likely not.  There’d been no point to picking out clues and making them fit together in a way she understood.  She could barely remember the last time she watched a sunrise—and yet here she was, unable to see the mingling colors as the sun crept and stretched over Kirkwall, but enjoying the sunrise all the same.

She’s been so concerned lately with maintaining appearances, with making sure nobody knew the Champion of Kirkwall was compromised—but now she wonders… is there a point to it?  She can keep up the act for a time; indeed, she’d thought all she had to do was keep it up until her sight returned.  But after a month—nearly two months now—was there a chance of that anymore?

It’s true—she gets tired and frustrated.  Her hope is not as unshakable as she wants people to believe (and she isn’t entirely sure she’s fooled everybody on that score).  She wants to believe she can still restore her eyesight, but at what point does that hope become foolish?  At what point does remaining in Kirkwall—a city where she is known, and a known apostate—become a threat to herself?

Though she’s made the joke more than once, perhaps it is time to leave Kirkwall.  Perhaps it is time for the Champion to retire in obscurity.  Her friends will carry on without her.  She isn’t worried about them.  Much.  

All right, she worries.

But there is little enough she can do for them now.  And if Meredith gets it into her head that a blind mage is just that much closer to being an abomination, Amelle won’t be much help to anyone if she’s in the Gallows. Part of being a successful apostate—for a definition of “successful” that includes “alive”—depends on knowing when to stay and when to run.

Perhaps it is time to run.

The house door opens and closes again, and it is the sheer absence of clues that tells Amelle it’s Fenris, newly awake and come down to check on her.  Besides, Orana closes the door far more quietly, and if it were Orana, there would be the accompanying tinkle of china or the scent of food.  Bodhan has made a habit of announcing himself whenever he enters a room.  Sandal doesn’t, but he’s got a different step when he walks that sets him apart from the rest of the household.

“Good morning.”  It is Fenris and Amelle smiles, in part because it’s Fenris and in part because she knew it was him before he spoke.

“I made tea.”  There’s no point in being coy about it when it’s the most productive thing she’s done in recent memory.  She tilts her head toward where the teapot still sits.  “Have some.  I’d be surprised if Orana didn’t bring out a second cup.  Also, good morning.”

The clink of porcelain follows.  Two cups, then.  “You’ve been up some time,” he says before sitting down next to her.  She knows he doesn’t like the cold, and so she lifts up the edge of her blanket in a silent invitation Fenris accepts, sliding beneath it until they are sitting thigh to thigh.

“I’ve been thinking,” she tells him, after a moment or two of enjoying his warmth against her side.

“Thinking, or brooding?”

“Thinking, thank you,” she retorts.  “You’re the brooder in this relationship.”

 He chuckles and they enjoy their tea in silence, until Fenris asks, “What about?”

“At… what point it might be prudent to leave Kirkwall.”

It is not… _quite_ silence that follows; the morning is too full of sound to be truly silent.  But Fenris doesn’t say anything for several seconds.  Then:  “You wish to leave.”

“No.  Kirkwall’s the closest thing I have to a home right now.  I don’t _wish_ to leave—I wonder when it would be… advantageous to leave.”

“What is your decision?”

Amelle crosses her ankles and swings her feet beneath the blanket, snuggling closer to Fenris.  He wraps an arm about her shoulders.  “I haven’t made one, yet.”  

They stay like that a while, drinking tea beneath their blanket while the sun rises ever higher, but autumn sunlight can never fully ease the chill off stone, so they remain beneath the blanket in warm, companionable silence.

Then Amelle tips her head to the side, finding Fenris’ shoulder without trying.  “Also, I… owe you an apology.”

“You do not.”

“I do.”

“For what?”

“I’ve been… difficult to live with this week.  This month. Two months.”

He breathes a soft huff of laughter.  “Would that I apologized whenever I was ‘difficult to live with.’  We would have no other conversation but apologies.”

She nudges him with her elbow and he squeezes her shoulder.  “Maker forbid.”  Silence settles and stretches around them like mist, and Amelle swears she can feel Fenris thinking—or brooding, one of the two—and she says, without preamble:  “I haven’t given up, you know.”

Startled silence follows—and, Maker, has she always known so many different qualities of silence?—until finally Fenris says, “You’re so certain you have not?”

She sighs.  His question is a difficult one.  She doesn’t _think_ she’s given up hope she might yet repair her eyes, but it’s been nearly two months.  How much more healing magic can she apply— _should_ she apply—before accepting what is broken may not be fixed?  “Every day, Fenris.  Healing magic every day for close to two months.  I’m surprised I’m not glowing by now.  Unless I am and no one’s seen fit to tell me.”

“Hawke…”

“ _Am_ I glowing?”

“No.”

“Thank the Maker for small favors.”

“Hawke.”  His patience with her jests, her preferred coping mechanism, is running thin.  “The… attempt we made.  You haven’t expressed any interested in trying it again.”

Amelle grimaces, suddenly annoyed Fenris can see her expressions and she can’t see his.  “Ah,” is all she says.

“Yes.”

What can she tell him?  That she’d so firmly _believed_ their joint effort would work that its failure made her begin to believe her sight was too damaged to be repaired?  That though it doesn’t make any sense, she’d rather pour hours of her own healing power onto the damage to no effect than run the risk of getting her hopes up that high again?

“It didn’t work,” she finally says, not wanting to offer any other explanation.

As it happens, whether or not she has an explanation matters little.  Fenris sets the cup down and turns on the bench, the better to look into her face.   “Then there is nothing we stand to lose by attempting it again.”

“Fenris…”

“Once more.  That is all I ask.”

Amelle bows her head.  Wind rustles the yew tree, sending autumn-dry leaves scattering to the flagstones with the softest scratching whisper of sound.  She already knows she will give him this, already knows that she will acquiesce no matter how many times he wishes to attempt it.  No matter how many times her heart breaks when she sees her vision lighten to red moments before plunging into blackness again.

“When?” she asks, fingers tense around the teacup.  Its contents are cold.  A second or two tick by and Fenris extracts the cup from her hands, setting it aside.

“Now.”

That brings her head up.  “Now?”

“Indeed,” he replies, moving off the bench and taking the blanket with him.  The blanket then settles around her shoulders and it takes a moment for Amelle to realize he’s knelt in front of her. “Now.”

“I’m in my dressing gown,” she argues.

“The last time we tried,” he replies, unperturbed as he cradles her face in his hands, “you wore less.”

The last time they tried, she was also angry and desperate.  Now she’s simply afraid.  Amelle draws in an unsteady breath to summon her mana, but what begins as a tremulous inhale smoothes and deepens as Fenris’ fingers slide slowly across her temples and into her hair.  His name escapes past her lips in a bare breath of a whisper.  She has nothing to be afraid of but disappointment.  And yet.

“Do you think for a moment,” he says, his voice low and rich, “the possibility this might not work could ever be enough to dissuade me from _trying_?  You have not given up on yourself.  You have never given up on me, though I have provided you reason more than once.  Do not think I would abandon you any more easily.”

When he puts it that way, well, Amelle supposes he has a point.  And when she puts herself in his shoes—so to speak—she understands perfectly.  Nothing would induce her to concede defeat where Fenris is concerned.  If he’d been the one rendered sightless, she’d have flooded his body with healing magic until she was drained a hundred—a thousand—times over, if it meant even the most outside chance of restoring his sight.

“Do not stop me from helping if I can.”  His thumbs stroke her cheeks, and she leans into the caress.

“All right,” she finally says after too long a pause, tipping her head forward until her forehead rests against his.  “Once more, and… and however many times you want after that.”

He chuckles, and the fingers stroking her face slide back to meet at the nape of her neck.  They neither of them say anything for a time.  Amelle pulls the blanket more tightly around her and Fenris both—if she’s cold, he must be; he’s always felt the cold more keenly than she.

A second ticks past, then two, then more.  Finally—finally, she can’t stall any longer, can’t put it off any longer.  Hope flares undaunted in her heart—another attempt and maybe, _maybe_ —but Amelle tries not to feed that flame; the brighter the hope, the sharper the disappointment.  She breathes in, reaching down to the place inside her that is connected to the Fade, and she stokes her mana until it pulses forth, filling her veins with light she feels rather than sees.  The mana is raw, unshaped, ready to becoming anything Amelle wishes.  Fire.  Ice.  Lightning.

Healing.

She’s never been able to adequately explain the difference between a basic healing spell and the change that comes over her when she—summons?—connects with her Fade spirit.  Basic healing spells feel… cool and clean to her psychic touch, living in her sense-memory as dew-damp grass and spring mornings in the hours before the sun burns away the clouds.  But spirit healing spells are nowhere near so gentle.  The Fade is a place of power, Amelle has always known this; it is a place of power that carries with it great danger, and for as much as Amelle is in awe of it, she also respects that power.  The spirit— _her_ spirit, for she cannot help but feel a distinct connection to it—acts as a conduit for the power of the Fade.  And though Amelle has never asked, she’s more than certain if she were to touch that energy directly, without her spirit’s touch to temper it, that energy would burn her mind to ash, leaving her either mad or possessed.

She tries hard not to think about that, focusing instead on her spirit’s hands; the sensation has always provided comfort, even when she was new to her role and frightened by the sheer force channeling through her, scorching fire and freezing ice that stole her breath and made every nerve tremble. Every time— _every time_ —the energy feels as if it teeters on the edge of “too much.”  But still she calls on it.  She calls on it now and soon her spirit’s hands are atop hers.  

She directs that energy to her ruined eyes.

Amelle has always wondered if Fenris is… aware of her magic, and how deep that awareness runs.  She’s never asked. But he knows the exact moment her mana shifts and changes into healing magic. 

If the last time they tried this felt like lightning up her arms, this is a full electrical storm over a stormy sea, a tempest that stretches across the sky and down into her.  This is not an incidental touch, not a reflective surge of lyrium meeting a reflexive pulse of mana.  This is not Fenris after being wounded and poisoned.  This is so, so much _more_.

Amelle thinks she gasps with the shock of it—her lips are parted and her breath pulls yet more mana, touched then by lyrium, and for one mad moment she wonders if she should just stop breathing altogether.  

Then her vision lightens from black to red and she nearly stops breathing anyway.  

She’s been here before, felt this, saw this.  Amelle closes her eyes, suddenly afraid.  Afraid of failure, afraid of disappointment.  Afraid, even, of Fenris’ reaction should he believe he failed her, sure he will blame his thrice-damned markings that will let him kill a man but not aid her when he most wishes to.

Suddenly the power coursing through her turns into so much _more_ , arcs of lightning turning broader, longer, _brighter_ , and it _hurts_ —hurts like nothing she could have ever imagined.  There is nothing gentle about the healing process, nothing painless about it; bones stretch and ache when she knits them back together, torn muscle and sinew threaten to cramp and contract as she coaxes them back as they were.  Something—she doesn’t know what, but _something_ is happening in her eyes, something bright and burning that hurts, reminding her, somewhat ironically, of the moments before she lost her sight, when she’d felt as if she’d been staring into the sun.  It is as if her mana alone was a lonely wave crashing against a sea wall, but Fenris’ lyrium has augmented her ability into an endless series of crashing waves, creating fissures in rock as water seeps into those cracks, slowly weakening the barrier.  But instead of water, it’s light, bright and scorching cold, and she _feels…_ something.  Something like nerve endings flaring to life and burning awake.  A barrier being breached.

The noise Amelle makes is caught between a gasp and a sob and she pulls her aching fingers from where they’re clutching the blanket, reaching out and grabbing hard at Fenris—his shoulders, his arms, she cannot tell right now and she does not care; she needs to feel him there, even though his lyrium is rushing into her, setting fire to her mana, she needs to feel his warmth beneath her hands, needs to know he’s _there_.

Fenris’ voice sounds distant beneath the thrum and rush of magic and the blood pounding in her ears.  “Open your eyes, Hawke.”

She doesn’t dare.  It hurts, and the light within her is so bright Amelle is almost afraid she’ll blind herself all over again if she tries.

Again, his voice low and thick with emotion, Fenris says, “Open your eyes.”

Tears prick her closed lids.  Then she forces them open.

The world is not black.  Nor is it red.  It is a blurry watercolor of greys and blacks and browns and whites.  Amelle blinks.  Still blurry, but the black is Fenris’ shirt.  The white is his hair.  The grey belongs to the flagstones upon which he’s still kneeling.

She closes her eyes again, biting down hard on her lip.

“Is it working?”

Maker help her, it _is_.  Amelle manages a brief nod and Fenris’ fingers tighten on the back of her neck.  Another wave of lyrium follows, as if this realization has renewed his resolve, and it catches her mana, sending light and fire and ice to her eyes, stinging until they water, until tears push past her lids and trail down her cheeks.

When she blinks again, Amelle’s magic stutters out with a start; it’s Fenris’ face she sees—still blurry, but it’s his face, and she _sees_ it.  The lines of lyrium trailing down his chin and neck glow so brightly they cast shadows upward—and then, when he realizes her spell has died, that light subsides, the shadows disappear, and he pulls back to look at her.

For the first time in almost two months, Amelle meets his eyes.  Her vision isn’t perfect, but she has vision to speak of, and that is more—so much more than she’d dared hope.  When Fenris’ expression turns—oh, she can track it from uncertainty to wary curiosity as his eyes narrow and his brows furrow, and there are no words for how much she’s _missed_ that.  When Amelle’s breath catches in a sob this time, it has nothing to do with the pain of fire and ice chasing along her nerves and everything to do with seeing what she thought she’d never see again.  Her smile, she knows, is a watery one as she reaches up to touch his cheek, meeting his eyes. 

They are every bit as green as she remembers.

Fenris breathes her name, her given name, as his hands slide from the back of her neck to cradle her face again, thumbs coasting across her cheeks, fingers extending down to her neck.  She doesn’t look away, doesn’t dare blink, for fear this moment might slip through her fingers like sand—at least until her eyes go dry and she’s forced to blink anyway.  Bowing her head, she pulls Fenris into an embrace, clutching him hard, her chin resting upon his shoulder as she _looks_ , taking in everything from the white hair tickling her cheek to the yew tree with its blurry, skeletal limbs and scant, stubborn leaves that refuse to fall.  The garden is… almost too bright for her to tolerate; the sky is impossibly clear and cloudless and so very, very _blue,_ and the sun is streaming over the rooftops, enough to make her pupils contract painfully—but it is a pain she will gladly tolerate, now and always.

“How did you know?” she murmurs, closing her eyes against the too bright autumn sunlight flooding all around them and turning her face into Fenris’ neck where his pulse is beating hard. “How did you know it would work?”

His arms tighten on her, pulling the blanket more firmly around them.  “I… didn’t.  I was only certain that in all other things, you make me stronger, and believed—hoped—the reverse would prove just as true.”

Her laughter is broken as she pulls back to meet eyes she thought she’d never see again. “Remind me to never doubt you again.”

There’s a rare smile at Fenris’ lips, small and private, further warming his eyes.  “At every opportunity.”

 

 

 

 


End file.
